#12 Dark Age Ahead

Jane Jacobs is my favourite adopted Canadian. She is/was a brilliant thinker, a common-sense advocate and a role-model. Dark Age Ahead was her last work before her death in 2006, and it contains a time-honed wisdom that is enviable. Her prose is exacting and refreshingly to the point when discussing issues that are normally couched in specialized vocabulary. Her predictions are eerily correct, and when explained by her, clearly obvious (which makes it even scarier).

I think you should read this book. That's fairly high praise, I don't often recommend a book across the board like that, but her ideas on activism, education, the use of science and how to live in a city are so widely applicable that there is something of value in this book for most readers. That is not to say that everyone will agree with everything she says, nor even find all her arguments sound. There are strengths and weaknesses here, and she does have a few pet ideas that she uses somewhat broadly. But, her ideas are only as good as the conversations they start and the actions that result. More readers means more possible conversations, and more opportunities for a future that is a little less dark. Go read this book.