[ghaff]

Jane Jacobs is an interesting case in that many of today's urbanists read in her what they want to read.

She was indeed against highways going through the middle of cities and in favor of walkability and mixed use.

At the same time, she also opposed rationalist urban planning like Le Corbusier's clusters of towering skyscrapers. She would likely not have favored the mass building of vertical housing that many of the same people who oppose cars want in order to reduce housing prices.

[fooblitzky]

Le Corbusier's clusters of towering skyscrapers aren't really a good solutuion either. They were implemented in Glasgow with disastrous results[1].

My (limited) opinion, is that auto-centric opponents want dense, walkable, cyclable cities. That doesn't imply towering skyscrapers, six stories of apartments with mixed retail, office, and light industry are sufficient. That should provide enough density to make public transit a viable option, if road space is reclaimed from cars.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/16/urban-living-...

[ghaff]

One of the challenges is that you have an existing city that isn't that. The towering skyscrapers at least are something you can implement in a relatively limited area a la classic urban renewal. (Which mostly doesn't work well.)

(But you'll find no shortage of people arguing for basically bulldozing the Mission and building a bunch of high-rises.)

The other has to be more organic but takes a lot of time and tends to generate a lot of resistance if 2-story zoning is turned into 6-story zoning.