Jane’s Walk Coquitlam

Just what is it that makes a city the city that it is? What goes into what goes on in the streets and parks and paths that wind through the places that we live? What works? What doesn’t? What would you change? Why would you change it? What is it about the places we live and the spaces that we share that calls community together? Join curator, historian and designer Markus Fahrner for an informative and engaging walk and conversation about the people and places and spaces and stories in Coquitlam’s Maillardville for a Jane’s Walk on Saturday 3 May 2025 from 11:00am to about noon. We will meet at the SW corner of Brunette and King Edward in Coquitlam.

Each year Jane’s Walks take place in over 500 cities throughout the world. Starting in 2025, ArtsConnect has signed on to organize Jane’s Walks in neighbourhoods across the Tri-Cities. These walking conversations about how we make the cities in which we live and work and play are inspired by Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) a writer, urbanist and activist who championed a community-based approach to city-building. She had no formal training as a planner, and yet her 1961 book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” introduced important ideas about how cities function, evolve, and even how they fail. Jacobs lived in Greenwich Village until 1968 when she moved to Toronto. In both cities, she helped derail the car-centred approach to urban planning and invigorated neighbourhood and community activism. Her activism and many writings continue to engage many of today’s architects, planners, policymakers, activists, citizens, and other city builders.

Jane’s Walks in the Tri-Cities take place on the ancestral and unceded territories of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm which lies within the shared territories of the səlilwətaɬ, q̓ic̓əy̓, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, qiqéyt, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Sto’:lo.