Undeniably a provocateur & advocate for public spaces, Jane Jacobs wrote her landmark book The Death and Life of Great American Cities amid the civil rights , disability rights & women’s rights movements without a smidgen of critical race, disability or meaningful gender analysis

She wrote about the ballet of a “good city sidewalk” during a time of immense civil unrest and restricted (socially and spatially) spaces. As a related side note, I believe Black people often say “streets” vs “street” because we understand their pluralistic and uneven character.

And while she asserted that public peace is not maintained by police but is “enforced by the people themselves,” her notion of enforcement (rather than public space stewardship), coupled with “eyes on the street” have inadvertently contributed to CPTED and profiling.

I’m uninterested in debating Ms. Jacob’s contributions as I’m willing to concede that she was influenced by the corner of the street she occupied. However, urbanism profs please assign her work as a valuable contribution to city-building discourse not religious text.