Editorial: The Heeb 106

In a sign of disrespect for the importance and sexiness of urban planning, the editors at Heeb Magazine declined to include a category for urbanists in their recent Heeb 100 list of the hippest, coolest young Jews. Despite sit-ins and protests outside of Heeb's offices, they refuse to budge from their position that fashion is more important or interesting than sewage or bike lanes.

We at Saturbia recognize that it would be all but impossible to select a half-dozen enterprising members of the tribe from amongst then legions of Jews engaged in urban activities these days. Therefore, we will examine another Top 100 list - Planetizen's Top 100 Urban Thinkers of All Time - to nominate candidates for what will surely be an important category in the 2010 Heeb list.

Despite some internet reports, there is little evidence that the #1 person on the list, St. Jane Jacobs, is Jewish, despite a good last name. This means that the leading Jewish urbanist of all time is...

7. Lewis Mumford. It seems that Mumford's feelings towards his Jewishness were highly ambivalent, as were his feelings about cities, people and anything that wasn't the medieval city. Makes him similar to Max Weber (definitely not a Jew) or Robert Park (Jew), except that neither of them managed to make the list.

20. Jaime Lerner. Heeb, are you listening? Do you even know there are Jews in Curitiba, Brazil, let alone ones that are working to redo how you move about the city?

23. Robert Moses. Alas. Just like Lerner, albeit the opposite.

27. Scott Bernstein. Everyone is excited about Scott making the list - he's young, cute, knows a lot about cargo and WATOD and TOD and lots of other cool things. Heeb, this guy is cover material, assuming he is actually Jewish.

31. Bruce Katz. An urban wonks wonk, Herr Katz and his Brookings team keep it real with great reports that you can get for free, cite and look smart. And what a good, strong, American Jewish name. Could be president of the shul.

There are of course a handful of others, complicated only by all of the Germans and German Americans whose names sound Jewish but probably are not. Yet we at Saturbia must mention the patron saint of Jewish urbanism, #58 Walter Benjamin, arguably the first urban hipster intellectual. Heeb, are you listening?