Jane Holtz Kay (born Jane Holtz; July 7, 1938,

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

– died November 4, 2012) was an American

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban d ...

and architecture critic. A columnist for ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', she authored three books on the conservation of natural and urban environments, most notably ''Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back''. Kay grew up in the Boston suburb of Brookline with her younger sister, Ellen. After graduating from

Buckingham School The Buckingham School is a co-educational secondary school in Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. It is a community school, which takes children from the age of 11 through to the age of 18. The school is expanding and currently has ...

, she studied at Radcliffe College, majoring in American history. In 1960, she wrote her senior thesis on the historian and urban critic

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a w ...

. His writings became a big influence on hers, and she visited him several times in the following decades. Kay began her career in journalism as a reporter for ''

The Patriot Ledger ''The Patriot Ledger'' is a daily newspaper in Quincy, Massachusetts, that serves the South Shore. It publishes Monday through Saturday. Known for its thorough news coverage of the 26 communities south of Boston, ''The Patriot Ledger'' has won ...

'', based in Quincy, Massachusetts, but later worked primarily as a freelance writer and author. Kay wrote columns for ''

'' and ''

'', and contributed several articles to ''

'' "design notebook" column. Her first book, ''Lost Boston'', was published in 1980. It portrays buildings in Boston which had been demolished to build malls, roads or parking spaces. It was followed by ''Preserving New England'' (1986), which she had written with Pauline Chase Harrell. Her most influential book, however, is ''Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back'', a critique of the car's dominance on American culture published in 1997. In 1991, Kay had sold her car and moved to the

Back Bay Back Bay is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, built on reclaimed land in the Charles River basin. Construction began in 1859, as the demand for luxury housing exceeded the availability in the city at the time, and t ...

neighborhood of Boston.

Death

Jane Holtz Kay died November 4, 2012 at the Springhouse Senior Community in

Jamaica Plain Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood of in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Settled by Puritans seeking farmland to the south, it was originally part of the former Town of Roxbury, now also a part of the City of Boston. The commun ...

, aged 74, from Alzheimer's disease.

Books

* 1980: ''Lost Boston''. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; . * 1986: ''Preserving New England: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine''. New York: Pantheon Books; (with Pauline Chase Harrell) * 1997: ''Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back''. New York: Crown Publishers; .

References

External links

Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kay, Jane Holtz 1938 births 2012 deaths American architecture writers People from Brookline, Massachusetts Writers from Boston Radcliffe College alumni The Boston Globe people The Nation (U.S. magazine) people The New York Times columnists American women columnists Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Neurological disease deaths in Massachusetts Buckingham Browne & Nichols School alumni American women non-fiction writers People from Jamaica Plain 21st-century American women