PRESS/MEDIA
Rizzoli Bookstore, NYC, event aired on CSPAN-3, American History TV, June 26, 2021
Jane Jacobs’s First City launch with Mayor Paige Cognetti in Scranton, Pennsylvania, at Lackawanna College (formerly Scranton’s Central High School, Jane’s alma mater) by ECTV’s Chris Balton: “An Evening with Glenna Lang, author of Jane Jacobs’s First City: Learning from Scranton, PA, Book Talk,” May 4, 2021
“Great book – read it in galleys – on how young Jane Jacobs was forged by her hometown & neighborhoods of Scranton. Took me back to my own early days in Newark … & my dad’s factory in the Ironbound section. For kids today, that city is lost …” —Richard Florida, University of Toronto professor, urbanist, author of The Rise of the Creative Class
“Lang presents a charming, well-written account of Jacobs’s childhood, filled with exhaustive historical research, poignant interviews, and evocative descriptions of Scranton. As Lang shows, it was Scranton, not Greenwich Village, that inspired Jacobs’s influential Death and Life of Great American Cities, released 60 years ago this year.” —Charles J. McElwee, City Journal
Erika Funke, award-winning host and producer of “Art Scene,” WVIA Public Media, masterful interview with author, aired on Jan. 5, 2022.
Patrick McKenna, associate editor, blog in Scranton Times Tribune, “Book recounts intertwined lives of Scranton, Jane Jacobs,” May 9, 2022. “Even for an old, native Scrantonian like me, a longtime local journalist reasonably well-versed in Scranton’s history, the book was enlightening. Scores of wonderful stories illustrate Scranton’s prominence and colorful history….”
“As a study in the origins in biography of Jane Jacobs’s urban philosophy, this is an extraordinary achievement. I read the book with great admiration for the skill in packing it with telling minutia yet producing a clear text. Would that all academic works were such a joy to read!” —James F. O’Gorman, leading American architectural historian and author, Wellesley College professor emeritus
Richard J. Weintraub, Scranton native and retired psychiatrist; op-ed piece in Scranton Times Tribune, “Book renews love of Scranton, ‘Jacobs’ first city,’” March 28, 2022. “As a Scranton native, I felt compelled to write after reading Glenna Lang’s Jane Jacobs’s First City. What she has effectively done is to reframe the region’s negative, victim perspective and by so doing greatly enhances our appreciation of where we came from…. [It] should be required reading for all Scrantonians.”
“This origin story of Jane Jacobs holds multiple implications for people today, no matter their age, gender, or whether or not they live in a city. Well before today’s terminology, she was an influencer of the first order. She succeeded without a college degree, but with powers of self-learning that many would do well to emulate, whether or not they hold academic degrees…. Scranton today holds clues to how cities … can regenerate and reinvent themselves and, just as importantly, how the story of Jane Jacobs might inspire individuals to do the same.” —Bruce Rosenstein, author and “Living in More Than One World” blogger
“Jane Jacobs possessed extraordinary alertness to the ensemble and subtleties of her native city, and Glenna Lang provides a primer into all of the aspects that made Jacobs’s perceptions so vivid. If The Death and Life of Great American Cities seems like too big a project, start by reading Jane Jacobs’s First City instead.” —Martha Frish, author, activist, and “Elevating appreciation of urban neighborhoods” blogger
“Ms. Lang’s book is a hat trick of discoveries. There is the piecing together of Jane Jacobs’s early family life and her independent thinking, the rise and fall and rebirth of an industrial city, and the 20th century economic, cultural and historical context of changing business and industries. The book can be read from any of these three perspectives.” —Sandy James Planner, Vancouver Views
ECTV Scranton community TV —“A Conversation with (Architect) Richard Leonori and Glenna Lang,” Nov. 20, 2021 by Chris Balton and Mary Frances Giordano
“PA Books,” on PCN TV (Pennsylvania Cable Network) —Conversation with host Brian Lockman about Jane Jacobs’s First City, aired March 6-7, 2022