Dismissed by Jane Jacobs, Harlem Reinventing Itself as a Mixed-Use Haven

So rarely did Jane Jacobs discuss race in “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” that her biographer, Alice Sparberg Alexiou, felt compelled to cite this “glaring but seldom-mentioned shortcoming” in the introduction to “Jane Jacobs: Urban Visionary.” For this failing, contemporary liberals often attacked Jacobs. Indeed, the architecture critic of the Nation magazine, Walter McQuade, wrote in a 1962 review that Jacobs’s ideas were “not even a semi-solution to the main problem of the city: saturation by low-income non-whites.” Jacobs did write about black neighborhoods, particularly Harlem. At first glance, however, her words seem to reinforce the criticism. She disdainfully quotes a black political leader who called Harlem “the most attractive piece of real estate” in New York. He praised its hills, views of both rivers, good transportation, and lack of industry.