 Zukin has called Jacobs “the iconic urban writer, against whom other urban writers must measure themselves” and “the person who, against all odds in the mid-twentieth century, extolled the messiness, the grittiness, the tentativeness, but also the firm friendships of city life.” Zukin categorizes Jacobs, like Herbert Gans, as a “socially conscious intellectual” who “defended the right of poor people not to be displaced.”

But Zukin differs from Jacobs in whom she considers the main antagonists when it comes to creating livable, equitable cities.Especially in her book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", Jacobs blames planners and the planning profession for destroying healthy, functional neighborhoods through forced urban renewal programs and for generally inflicting a "Great Blight of Dullness.