Grady Clay, An Urban Visionary
When Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published in 1961, perhaps the most significant book on American urbanism in the 20th Century, it was not a surprise that one of the experts she quoted was Grady Clay. He was the urban affairs editor of The Courier-Journal, and anyone who cared about city planning knew Grady and the work he was doing in Louisville in those days. It must have been a good life for them; both were born in 1916, and each lived nine decades. (Jane Jacobs died in 2006; Grady died early Sunday morning.)
Way too short! How a nationally recognized authority on urbanism got reduced to that is beyond me! While completing my masters in Historic Preservation his work helped me grasp the concepts of Human Geography. Brilliant man!
ReplyDelete"He also realized that some of the forces he opposed were far stronger and richer (like me, as a compromised C-J editor, for instance), but he was undeterred."
ReplyDeleteIf I hadn't witnessed so much of it already, it would be somewhat unbelievable that Runyon, even in writing of a friend's life and death, failed to mention his own role in subjugating Clay's work and vision.