Jacobs’s admirers, Dr. Klemek said, are equally vociferous: He noted a recent article in Time Out New York magazine that asked “What Would Jane Jacobs Do?” as if the urban theorist were a Christ-like figure.
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.
“In practice, she disapproved equally of self-isolating large development, like public housing for low-income people, and luxurious towers for high-income people,” she said, adding later, “She admired a certain kind of active integration, of people of different races, incomes, educational levels. She admired the presence of work in neighborhoods. She had a romantic attachment to manufacturing work and certain small enterprises — retail, commercial — on the street. She liked everything mixed up together.”
