Jane’s Walk Calgary
Our 2018 festival is now over. We hosted nearly 80 walks in 2018, with our largest number of participants to date! Thank you to all of our walk leaders, and individuals who came out to learn more about their neighbourhoods and inspire community. Photos from walks can be found in this Facebook gallery.
Jane’s Walk Calgary has been an initiative of the Calgary Foundation since 2008 in partnership with Jane’s Walk international.
Curious about leading a walk next year? The Organizer toolkit below contains a set of resources to help you organize Jane’s Walks.
A Global Movement
Jane’s Walks are free, locally-led walking tours inspired by legendary urban activist Jane Jacobs, in which people get together to explore, talk about and celebrate their neighbourhoods. Where more traditional tours are a bit like walking lectures, a Jane’s Walk is more of a walking conversation. Walks can focus on almost any aspect of a neighbourhood, and on almost any topic you can think of. Walks can be serious or funny, informative or exploratory; they can look at the history of a place, or at what’s happening there right now. Anyone can lead a walk–because everyone is an expert on the place where they live!
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was an urbanist and activist whose writings championed a fresh, community-based approach to city building. She saw cities as ecosystems that had their own logic and dynamism which would change over time according to how they were used. With a keen eye for detail, she wrote eloquently about sidewalks, parks, retail design and self-organization. At the core of her work and thinking was the need to get out and walk your city and observe how people, through their actions and interactions, create communities with a strong sense of belonging.