I read Jane Jacobs as part of a research writing class in college, focused on American cultural health. Essentially, the class was structured as the professor a

I read Jane Jacobs as part of a research writing class in college, focused on American cultural health. Essentially, the class was structured as the professor asserting Jocabs' work as the core thesis of the class, with our main paper for the term to either concur or dissent with it. (And hence, the class had two components -- reading Jacobs' work and a few select others the professor picked, dissecting the arguments and sources used, and then building a list of related materials, finding them (eg, at the main state school archive), reading those chosen materials, and writing a paper based on them either concurring with or dissenting from the main body of work. I won't claim to agree with her 100%, but like many people I disagree with, articulating what we agree on, what we disagree on, and why is very informative about my own views on a topic. So, at 18, it was very formative to interact with several of her books about city structure, how culture both emerges from and influences that structure, and related works and topics.