(Re)assessing Jane Jacobs

Read "Time for Some Jane Jacobs Revisionism?," from the New York Times City Room Blog, for a recounting of a session Wednesday night in association with the Municipal Arts Society exhibit Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York City.

From the piece:

Julia Vitullo-Martin, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, emphasized Jacobs’s appeal to people from different political positions. “It’s very striking about Jane Jacobs that such a wide range of views can be found in her writings that people along the entire political spectrum admire,” she said. “She relies on stories and anecdotes for much of what she says, and then it’s incumbent on the reader to try to figure out what the story says and what the story means.”

What emerges from her straightforward prose, she argued, is a deep respect for the principles of density and complexity in urban design. But those ideals can be misinterpreted, she suggested, if one receives priority over the other.

------------

The points I make about layering and leveraging extant investment have to do with "complexity." "Density" has to do with the link between population, income, and economic viability of cities, districts, and neighborhoods.

And complexity and density are linked and co-equal.