Urban Revitalization and Eminent Domain: Misinterpreting Jane Jacobs

Abstract:     
This article reviews the implications for land use policy of Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Fifty years after its publication in 1961, Death and Life remains a clarion call for resistance to monolithic development and to the reigning paradigm of urban planning in the mid-20th century. The article asserts, however, that government officials and planners have learned the wrong lesson from Jacobs. Their emphasis on the top-down imposition of what purports to be varied development is evident in the growth of condemnation for retransfer for private economic redevelopment. Such policies are directly contrary to Jacobs’ insistence on bottom-up organic development.

The article further describes the muddled state of the U.S. Constitution’s Public Use Clause, evident in Kelo v. City of New London and in state cases such as Goldstein v. New York State Urban Development Corporation. It asserts that judicial unwillingness to provide meaningful scrutiny to condemnation for private redevelopment is based, in part, on acceptance of the revisionist, and incorrect, reading of Jacobs’ work.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 48

Keywords: Allodial Title, Belle Terre, Boraas, Bulk, Colonial America, Comprehensive Zoning, Feudal Ownership, George Sutherland, Height, Heterogeneity, Incremental Change, Mixed Arrangement, Nuisance, Public Use Clause, Setback, Settlement, Small Scale, Village of Euclid V. Ambler Realty, William O. Douglas

JEL Classification: K11, O21, P41, R11, R14, R52

Accepted Paper Series