Jacobs gets Shaughnessy Cohen

Jane Jacobs, matriarch of modern urban planning and social critic, has been awarded the 2005 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Dark Age Ahead. I have heard from a reliable source that she will not be putting a down-payment on a tract home with the $15,000 award.

Jacobs argues that what she calls the 'five pillars of our culture' are in jeopardy. These comprise families and communities, higher education, science and technology, taxes and governmental power, and, finally, the self-policing of learned professions ... Jacobs can write, and so by the end her arguments and admonitions all appear persuasive and disquieting. Crisp, entertaining, scholarly, scary. —Kirkus Review