Google honors Jane Jacobs' 100th birthday with Doodle

WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- Google honored famed New Yorker Jane Jacobs with a homepage Doodle highlighting her passion for the sociality of cities.

The late journalist and author of 1961's The Death and Life of Great American Cities turned 100 years old Wednesday, marking a day of remembrance by the company and others.

"She stood by beloved neighborhoods that were unjustly slated for 'renewal' and revealed political biases in the permit process for new projects," Google said in its explanation for the Doodle. "In Jacob's opinion, cities are for the people, and they're safest when residents mingle on the street and in local businesses."

Google's Doodle included a colorful, organized illustration showing a portrait of Jacobs in front of symbols of her neighborhood of Greenwich Village, including the Washington Square Arch.

During her life, Jacobs greatly impacted the approach local governments take when improving cities. The urban theorist and activist worked against impersonal modernization and the tearing down of long-established neighborhoods.

"Why have cities not, long since, been identified, understood and treated as problems of organized complexity?" Jacobs is quoted as asking.

Jacobs was born in 1916 in Pennsylvania and moved to New York's Greenwich Village in 1935. She worked as a journalist and freelance writer while also advocating for authenticity within her neighborhood. She later moved with her husband, architect Robert Hyde Jacobs, Jr. to Toronto, Canada, where she died in 2006.

Other notable works by the author include Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Systems of Survival and The Nature of Economies.