Jane's Walk

Be the tour guide!

Jane's Walk invites you to lead a walk in your neighbourhood in an area where you live, work or play. It simply involves planning a route, thinking through the stories, places and people you want people to hear about and discuss, then walking participants through it – you decide what’s important. If you like, you could share the guiding duties with a few other resourceful friends or colleagues.

Jane’s Walks are meant to be fun and participatory – everyone’s got a story and perspective on their neighourhood no matter how long they've lived there. Jane's Walk celebrates what's great about the places we live, as well as facilitaing a conversation about what communities need in order to be stronger, more cohesive places to live and thrive. When it comes to making improvements to the livability and vibrancy of neighbourhoods, people are often isolated or unaware of others who may share their interests. Jane’s Walk helps bridge these gaps and encourages people to get to know eachother and explore the sidewalks, shops, local businesses, schools, parks and public spaces.

Jane’s Walks work best as walking conversations, with lots of personal observations and examples and opportunities for others to contribute their ideas and observations. All tours are given, and taken, for free. We help with the publicity, logistics and website listings while the tour guides get the word out through local networks and friends. We also have useful resources and ‘tips for tour guides’ available on this site to help you develop an engaging and fun walking tour. Tour guides can also choose to connect with other Jane's Walks guides around the world on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

You can submit your walk directly by going to the section on the website called 'Tour Guides' and going to the 'Submit a walk' page.

Tour guides don’t have to be familiar with Jane Jacobs’ work to lead a tour, but we encourage people to find out more by reading her books or consulting our website for more links and primers on her ideas. 2011 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Jane Jacobs’ classic text ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’ and resource materials are available on our website (and beyond) to help tour guides incorporate materials from her writings if needed.