Indeed, a number of Republicans, and even some conservatives, have embraced much of this agenda. New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman tried to raise gas taxes to purchase open spaces and, when that failed, successfully sponsored a bond issue for the same purpose. Many American cities and suburbs are a mess. Jacobs's point was that truly livable cities evolve spontaneously, and that prescriptive planning stifles this process and upsets the urban order. The new plans work just as poorly as the old.
People never fit the planners' mold.
Light rail, for instance, which together with high-density development is supposed to reduce congestion, has been a flop. Nor does high-density development reduce congestion. The superficially appealing idea is that if we all live closer to where we work and shop, shorter car trips and mass transit will replace all those long car rides. But the real world doesn't work that way. As urban population density rises, auto-traffic congestion gets worse , not better, and commute times get longer , not shorter.