The ‘Jacobs Curve’ and gentrification

While gentrification is sometimes villainized, the "Jacob's Curve" suggests that there is an optimum level of reinvestment in neighborhoods that creates more diversity of place. The drawing, by planner and researcher Michael Mehaffy, is named after Jane Jacobs, who argued for revitalization in ways that move a poverty-stricken place toward a mixed-income neighborhood. Creating positive gentrification will be the gist of a session that is planned for CNU 26.Savannah on the last day of the Congress, May 19, at 2 pm, led by Mehaffy and Paddy Steinschneider.