Jane Jacobs is out of favor among those who want to get rid of old buildings and build towers on the theory that it will reduce housing prices, and as far as her not being able afford her old house in 2006, now the whole village is unrecognizable and completely unaffordable. But Jane-washing is more popular than ever.

These are not free spaces. They are not public spaces. They have nothing in common with Jacob’s observations of what makes a city work. In fact, these places accelerate inequality, and exacerbate difference. 'Jane washing' is a form of disguised exclusion because it makes those who are not welcome disappear.

The Jacobs legacy and brand recognition has become almost too valuable for people not to cavalierly cherry-pick her philosophies and "Janewash" her name over every other questionable pet project or cause, solely to generate a kind of urbanist street cred they’d otherwise never garner.

But looking at Jacobs’s legacy, I am less concerned with the things she missed or failed to understand than about the things she saw and the way the ideas she cared passionately about seem to have been misunderstood or deliberately misused for purposes that would have appalled her.