In 2016, when Donald Trump entered the presidential race, he introduced an unusual set of priorities to American politics. Unlike many American presidents who focused on traditional issues such as foreign policy, tax reform or health care, Trump drew attention to a striking matter: “taking back our cities.” He specifically pointed to cities like Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago, describing them as places with collapsing infrastructure, rising crime and where the “American Dream” had been abandoned. With the slogan “We will make our cities great again,” he offered a populist promise focused on the metropolises.
This was not a common approach in American politics. Usually, presidential candidates treat cities as a background to the states; urban problems are seen as the responsibility of local leaders. Trump changed this perception by framing cities as a national security and moral crisis.
Who will take back the cities?
In 2024, after winning the presidential election by a wide margin and returning to office for a second term, Trump once again brought urban issues to the forefront. But this time, he presents cities not only as symbols of collapse, but as arenas of cultural conflict and ideological division. The phrase “chaotic cities run by liberal elites” now sits at the center of his politics.
At this very moment, an unexpected name quietly emerges: Jane Jacobs, an American Canadian journalist and activist who was deeply interested in urban studies. Although they seem completely opposed at first glance, Trump’s emphasis on safety and neighborhoods strangely parallels Jacobs’ ideas about urban belonging and local oversight. Is this just a superficial similarity? Or does the city, as a space, speak to a shared feeling that cuts across political polarities?
Trump’s rhetoric is filled with dystopian imagery: collapsing public safety, demoralized police forces, uncontrolled homelessness and city centers overwhelmed by crime. What is his solution? To reestablish control. To support law enforcement. To rebuild neighborhoods not through community spirit but through deterrence. In his recent rallies, Trump proposed federal intervention in high-crime cities, praised “tough mayors,” and criticized the failures of progressive city councils. The slogan “We will take back the streets” sounds familiar to voters weary of disorder.
I chose to bring urban activist Jane Jacobs into this discussion not because Jacobs is part of current political debates, but because Jacobs’ work offers a radically different theory of urban order – one that emphasizes organic, community-based safety instead of state-imposed control. Jacobs’ legacy remains a crucial point of contrast for any contemporary vision of the city, whether progressive or conservative. In the 1961 classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jacobs advocated not for federal control but for local empowerment. Jacobs’ famous “eyes on the street” theory argued that safe neighborhoods are built not through military intervention, but where neighbors know each other, watch over one another, and feel connected to their surroundings.
Jacobs rejected top-down urban planning and cities shaped by bureaucratic coldness. Jacobs emphasized that a healthy city should be based on diversity, density and organic disorder. Since 2016, Trump has often spoken about “inner cities” – areas at the heart of large cities historically associated with poverty and racial inequality. But his narrative around these places has framed them as zones of threat and decline. Marked by crime, gang violence and unemployment, these neighborhoods top Trump’s list of places that must be “taken back.”
Strangely, though, Trump’s slogans, such as “bring back the real America,” “revive our streets,” and “protect our neighborhoods,” occasionally resemble Jacobs’ language of urban belonging and local oversight. For Trump, these neighborhoods are perceived as dangerous spaces that need correction. For Jacobs, they were the very heart of urban life.
Where do Trump, Jacobs overlap?
Despite deep political divides, both Trump and Jacobs draw attention to the collapse of community structures. Jacobs saw mid-20th-century modernist urban planning as an attack on city life. Trump describes the modern progressive city as dangerous and overregulated. They diagnose the same illness, but offer completely different treatments.
Trump’s emphasis on belonging, though often misused, echoes Jacobs’ sensitivity to place attachment. When Trump talks about protecting the “heart” of cities, it almost resembles Jacobs’ fight to save Greenwich Village from the bulldozers. Of course, Jacobs wanted to revive that spirit with gardens and jazz clubs; Trump does it with police forces and border walls.
Today in Chicago – especially in South Side and West Side neighborhoods – debates over crime rates and social fragmentation reflect the appeal of Trump’s security-focused rhetoric. But as Jacobs emphasized, the root of crime is not just the lack of policing; it’s the weakness of community ties.
This raises a broader question: How can American cities foster connection among residents and improve quality of life? Could the answer be a model like Cittaslow? That, of course, is a separate debate for urban scholars.
Returning to our topic, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s approach, which prioritizes neighborhood programs over police budgets, carries a Jacobsian spirit. Yet Trump-style critics label this approach as “weakness.” The real tension is this: Do we see the neighborhood as a crime zone, or as a living social organism?
If there’s anything more dangerous than authoritarianism, it’s a populist urban vision stripped of the idea of community. Trump may echo Jacobs’ language, but without the spirit Jacobs upheld – grassroots democracy, cultural diversity and mutual trust – he risks turning the soul of the city into a weapon.
So the question remains: Can conservative politics truly embrace Jacobs’ legacy, or is this just a distorted reflection? As cities once again enter a deeply polarized election cycle, perhaps the real task is not to choose between liberty and order – but to rethink both through the lens of human connection.
Strong bonds or surveillance?
Trump’s urban vision replaces Jacobs’ idea of “safety from within” with a model of “external control.” In doing so, it risks normalizing a surveillance-based order in the name of urban stability. However, we must remember that Jacobs’ “eyes on the street” did not refer to cameras or armed forces. They meant the grocer, the children playing outside, and the neighbor watching from Jacobs’ window.
If cities today are searching for a future, it won’t be found in police sirens or utopian design plans. The real future lies in a vision of the city where people know each other – where parks echo with children by day and conversation by night, and where relationships shape the rhythm of urban life.