Curing Slums: The Jane Jacobs Way and the Henry George Way
October 28, 2025Has Housing Filtering Stalled? Heterogeneous Outcomes in the American Housing Survey, 1985–2021
October 28, 2025Using Jane Jacobs and Henry George to Tame Gentrification
By Combs, J. L.
Full Citation
Combs, J. L. (2015). Using Jane Jacobs and Henry George to tame gentrification. American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 74(3), 600-630.
Key Findings
The solutions that Jane Jacobs proposed to improve neighborhoods created a paradoxical problem: improvement increased demand for the amenities of the area, which caused land prices to rise. The net result was at least partial displacement of the old residents of the neighborhood with new ones. Jane Jacobs has been criticized for ignoring gentrification, but she was clearly aware of this process and tried to find means to counter it. By combining the ideas of Henry George about land taxation with the ideals of Jane Jacobs about neighborhood diversity, we can mitigate the negative effects of gentrification and direct the energy of market forces into producing a greater supply of desirable neighborhoods.
