555 Hudson Street, For Sale

More missteps in the “Science of Planning” are going to have to wait until tomorrow (and Monday).

Jane Jacobs’ old house is for sale! You could live in the New York City townhouse where she wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It will only cost you $3,500,000.

While I’ve introduced the conditions for diversity that Jane Jacobs outlines in that book, I’ve yet to talk about the self-destrucion of diversity.

The West Village that Jane Jacobs knew and wrote about is gone. The process is simple. Diversity makes for an attractive and popular place. Its success encourages building owners to charge higher and higher rents, encouraging only the narrow selection of uses that can afford such high rents. Diversity disappears.

But things could always cycle back around, eh?