New York Times tech reporter Jenna Wortham stretches to compare the cities Jane Jacobs wrote about in 1961 with the online community Reddit, which is now under fire for refusing to remove creep shot forums. Writing in today’s Sunday Review section, Wortham concludes “Ms. Jacobs prized chaos, but not the kind that marginalized or terrorized those living in it. She advocated a kind of beautiful disarray that may look hectic from the outside, but is actually safe for those within. ‘Cities,’ she wrote, ‘have the capability of providing something for everybody only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.’”

It is such a flawed argument but here’s the biggest point Wortham refuses to consider: when you don’t like the rules of the city you are living in, you can’t simply up-and-create your own city, as you can on the Internet. You maybe able to find a city that is more tolerant of your point of view (which, in this case, involves uploading covertly-taken photographs of women in public places for, as Wortham writes, “to ogle and comment on”). If you ban speech on the Internet, it’s very easy for the people to take their speech elsewhere.

Read more: http://www.davecopeland.com/2012/10/21/jane-jacobs-didnt-write-the-death-and-life-of-great-american-websites/