JANE JACOBS ON CRIME IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: So the crime referred to in yesterday’s post took place in the middle of the afternoon, in broad daylight. This is the criminals’ MO; they’ve done the same crime several times, to different victims throughout the area. How did the criminals get away with it? It was easy. The area they hit is entirely residential. No stores. No gathering places. No watchful eyes. The place empties out during the day. This is exactly the kind of danger of single-use areas that Jane Jacobs described in The Death and Life of Great American Cities; it’s the same reason that office areas become dangerous at night, when the office workers pour into the subways and leave the streets deserted and vulnerable. It was very odd to sit there dealing with the (very helpful, generous, and professional) policewoman and suddenly realize that I was a public-policy case study.