As someone who over a 40-year period has read all but one or two of Jacobs' books--all of them more than once, and the earlier ones many times over--I have to congratulate you on your essay regarding the true legacy of Jane Jacobs. So far it is one of only two "obits" (out of maybe 10 to 15) that seem to me to be truly "on the mark." (Of course, this doesn't surprise me, as I've greatly enjoyed the Jane Jacobs-type essays you've written for the the City Journal over the years.)

However, I think I should alert you to the fact that Jacobs did in fact visit her old neighborhood (when she came back to New York in the Spring of 2004 to talk about "Dark Age Ahead") and did appear to decry (somewhat to my surprise) the "hyper" gentrification of Greenwich Village.

The article/interview(?) I'm thinking of in particular was in a local newspaper, "the Villager." In that article (and perhaps others) she seemed to support (again to my surprise) government subsidies to help keep the West Village -- particularly the housing development that she and her neighbors had sponsored as an alternative to the City's plans -- a diverse, mixed-income community.

Although I never had an opportunity to question her about this in person (and I'm glad I didn't--I would have been too scared!--although I would have liked to have had an opportunity to question her via e-mail), it seems to me that this may be one of those instances where one's various values clash (a not uncommon occurence in the real world) and in this particular instance she felt that a mix of incomes "trumped" market mechanisms.

If given the chance to make my case before Jacobs, however, I think I would have argued that the "true" problem wasn't an overheated market in Greenwich Village, but the stifling of the development (by the government and well-meaning community groups, etc.) of other Greenwich Villages throughout the rest of New York City.

(I also have mixed feelings--some good, some bad--about what Jacobs had to say about the WTC redevelopment. But that's another e-mail.)