Your term “Frankenstein Urbanism” reminds me of a memorable critique of New Urbanism that appears in the book Snooze by the Dutch think-tank firm Studio Sputnik (which I think you’ll love). They termed it the Doppelganger effect…New Urbanism appropriates Siena semiotically without actually having any of the behaviors and qualities that create a Siena. It is the fast food version of Siena. Somewhat like the argument in Learning from Las Vegas, they advocate actually studying more carefully that fast food. We need to first understand how to wield the tools of contemporary mass culture to avoid Doppelganger Urbanism. Their argument for how to implement urbanism in sprawlburg falls somewhat along your suggested lines, but I’d recommend you read the book to see the fascinating way they tackle mass culture.

Your quite right about the stark differences between Jane Jacobs and New Urbanist conceptions of her work, while she mildly tolerated them. She advocated not just that fine grain, but, you’re exactly right, the variagated nature of the community inhabitting it. New Urbanists allow their developers to design highly regulated mono-cultures as required by pro-formas. As long as that relationship exists we will never get to Jacobs. She did not require “mixed-use” but more correctly, “mixed activity” for “a mix of users”, this at a diversity of times. Miss any of this and you don’t have functioning urbanism in the Jacobs sense. Jacobs advocated 30 foot wide sidewalks, for petesake, and the kind of stoop intoxicated public realms that allow children to play on city streets. In Charlotte, there is a New Urbanist development called Birkdale Village that actually has signs barring the use of skateboards. There are also quite often a pod-like quality about these developments that still favor self-contained environments that despite their rhetoric often do their best to avoid a well-connected street fabric.

But I won’t go on…You seem to have a great grasp of these things…Cheers!