Earlier this week, Canada lost a true hero when urban activist/writer Jane Jacobs died at the age of 89. Since she moved to Canada in 1969, Jacobs had been a major force in shaping Toronto's development - providing city hall with a vision of what the city could be. Perhaps the highlight was her active role in killing the Spadina Expressway, which would have run a highway right through the downtown core. (Jacobs also led the charge to kill the Lower Manhattan Expressway).
   In addition to her landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs was a prolific writer and constant presence on the local politican scene. It would have been fascinating if Jacobs had embraced the blogosphere. With an insatiable hunger for new ideas, news and lively discussion, Jacobs could have used a blog to deliver her views on a variety of topics to an audience with a growing interest in how large urban centres are developing and evolving.
   At the mesh conference, our politics/society stream is going to explore how blogs are playing a growing role in getting new ideas and fresh thinking into the mainstream. With Michael Geist kicking things off with a keynote and panelists that include Andrew Coyne, Paul Wells, Captain's Quarters, David Pollard and Tom Williams, it should be a highly engaging and informative day. For more thoughts about this stream from the mesh gang, check out Mathew Ingram, Stuart MacDonald and Rob Hyndman. You can register for mesh here.