Jane Week May 1-5, 2023

Jane Week gives Worcester residents and visitors a chance to connect to each other, explore Worcester by foot and participate in interesting discussions on how we can enhance the design and function of our city. The event is named for Jane Jacobs, an urban theorist and activist who championed a community-based approach to city building. Jane Week in Worcester joins an international movement that occurs the first week in May in over 250 cities across the world.

Jane Jacobs (1916–2006) was an American-born writer and activist best known for her writings about cities. Her first book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961),  upended the ideas of modernist city planning and building, and offered a new vision  of diverse, fine-grained cities made for and by ordinary people. She published six more major books about  cities,  economics, ethics, governance and culture.