Spacing magazine awarded $15,000 Jane Jacobs Prize

Jane Jacobs

The editorial team at Spacing magazine has been honoured with the Jane Jacobs Prize at a ceremony held at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. 

Accepting the prize were Matthew Blackett, Dale Duncan, Todd Harrison, Shawn Micallef and Dylan Reid, the current editorial team. For seven years, the magazine has celebrated the public spaces of Toronto, said a release:

"The magazine's editors look very carefully at how the city works, what the street-level dynamics are in this city, and how we work together in the city economically. This, of course, is very much in tune with Jane Jacobs' ideas that rather than starting with an ideological or theoretical approach about how things work, you should start with observing closely and drawing your lessons from there.

"Residents and visitors alike find the magazine an ideal guide to the city. They may come across an article about the beauty of sewer maintenance hole covers, a feature story about the rules that govern Torontonians in their daily lives, or a map that shows where we live dictates how Torontonians get around."

The other winner of the prize was Catherine Nasmith, a Toronto architect who has devoted her career to urban issues, and launche Doors Open in Toronto in 2000. (Full details of this year's recipients.)

 The Jane Jacobs prize is sponsored by Ideas that Matter and funded by the Avana Capital Corporation, and is named in honour of long-time Toronto resident and renowned author (The Death and Life of Great American Cities), Jane Jacobs, noted most frequently in Canada for her contribution to the fight in Toronto against the Spadina Expressway. 

The first Jane Jacobs Prize was awarded in 1997 at the end of a five-day international celebration called Jane Jacobs: Ideas that Matter. Hundreds of the world's most prominent thinkers and community leaders attended the Toronto event to exchange ideas and celebrate Jacobs' work. The prize was created to build on the spirit of that gathering. It includes an annual stipend of $5,000 for three years, to be used as the recipient chooses.

Previous recipients of the prize include housing activist Derek Ballantyne, food and community advocate Nick Saul, community activist Amanuel Melles, transit advocate Steve Munro and restauranteur Roberto Martella.