Perhaps the most influential critique of urban renewal and top-down planning was Jane Jacobs’s 1961 book, Death and Life of Great American Cities.4 In that book she celebrated the complexity and organic development of city neighborhoods in which intricate social networks enhance safety, quality of life, and economic opportunity.
In Jacobs’s view, a police force was not as effective at maintaining order as a neighborhood filled with “public actors” such as storekeepers, doormen, and interested neighbors acting as street watchers at all hours.