Jane Jacobs, Tea Partier?

Flint looks at the complicated legacy that many of Jacobs' battles have left, from gentrification of Greenwich Village to overzealous Historic Preservation to the scourge of NIMBYism, and ends with a view of her principles as prescient of the Tea Party.

"Perhaps the greatest house-of-mirrors effect lies with the Tea Party, whose activists have been shutting down and disrupting planning meetings and public hearings across the country. Like Jane, these folks are anti-planning. Like Jane, there's a strong libertarian streak. The very tactics that brought about public participation are now being used by those with very different views from the progessive planners with the dog-eared copy of Death and Life on their shelf. Early on, from the battles over Washington Square Park to Lomex, Jane insisted on a singular guiding principle: no compromise. Don't accept the crumbs of mitigation in exchange for acquiescence. She didn't want a smaller highway - she wanted no highway. Jane Jacobs was a Tea Partier."

Thanks to Robert Steuteville