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This is all true. What's also true is that she was a NIMBY and an inspiration for later NIMBYs. She was right to oppose "urban renewal" projects that destroyed
by ciphol 5y ago
This is all true. What's also true is that she was a NIMBY and an inspiration for later NIMBYs.
She was right to oppose "urban renewal" projects that destroyed natural urban fabrics in the name of top-down planning visions. But as a NIMBY, she imposed another top-down vision with similarly negative effects.
What has changed since her lifetime is the relative harm caused by her vision versus that of her opponents. Back then housing was affordable while urban renewal projects destroyed whole swathes of cities. Nowadays the balance is reversed, large urban renewal projects are nearly impossible to accomplish while urban housing is unaffordable to much of the population.
- viburnum 5y agoThis is completely false. Read her classic, "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." She's trying to get at what makes cities work (variety and density). IIRC she talks about 100 units per acre as the right balance. This is what that looks like: https://www.theurbanist.org/2017/05/04/visualizing-compatible-density/ https://www.theurbanist.org/2017/05/04/visualizing-compatibl... But yes, she was against destroying neighborhoods with freeways.
- ciphol 5y agoShe lobbied to have her entire neighborhood landmarked so that nobody could build anything new there forever. Hard to get more NIMBY than that. https://www.villagepreservation.org/2016/05/05/continuing-jane-jacobs-work/ https://www.villagepreservation.org/2016/05/05/continuing-ja...