This reviewer loves cities. She has lived in three since leaving her native New Zealand, visits dozens of them a year, and makes her home of 16 years in the middle of London. Edward Glaeser, a second generation immigrant economist at Harvard University, loves them as well. Your reviewer found a great deal to like in his book, though wonders whether readers of more rural leaning would be so enthused.
Cities are the absence of physical space between people. They exist, and typically thrive, because although distance is dead thanks to technological development, proximity, paradoxically, matters more than ever. Concentration of ideas, talent, innovation, discovery into geographical clusters has never been disrupted, ever since human activity evolved far enough to make it happen the first time. The existence of close-quarters living has survived telephones, cheap fast travel and digital technology, all of which were supposed to have a hand in making cities obsolete. Books, which were the first type of IT for the masses, didn't do it either, which should have been a clue. Urbanisation has, instead, increased as these general purpose innovations have spread and integrated into culture. And actually, people overwhelmingly use them to contact those they already interact face to face with, rather than to compensate for not doing this.
Why? Well apparently in-person contact is, and has always been the best way to maximise trust, co-operation and generosity. And productivity too. Myriad social experiments reveal this but so do real life experiences. Your reviewer very occasionally runs competitive races and likes to believe she loathes them, but uncannily she performs better in them than the rest of the time. Workers in general expend more effort if next to someone else trying harder. Inspiration and competition are things that few folks are immune from. And they produce individual and wider benefits so people seek them out, and locate themselves where these are most available. Cities also eschew social convention and invariably end up more diverse, and accordingly creative (and destructive). Village communities can enforce conformity under the sanction of exclusion. Hard to do that to any resident of Los Angeles. Or Tokyo. Loose immigration policies only enhance such benefits.
Not that cities will always magically arise, organise themselves perfectly and prosper. When the various fifth-century invaders appropriated the well-run towns built by the Romans they allowed the infrastucture to decay (or they smashed it), and an age of urban empire was replaced by rural stagnation. Non diverse single-industry metro areas without wide and high education (Detroit, Liverpool) suffered serious depopulation and de-skilling when those industries were disrupted. And because cities are about people way more than they are about structures, policy makers consistently discover the impossibility of building them back to greatness with swanky new libraries or sports stadiums or new unwanted neighourhoods. After all, a city in decline is pretty much definable as having too much structure relative to people already. In fact managed shrinkage is the smarter reality-embracing policy, and decent examples are present in Leipzig and Pittsburgh. Instead of: "If you build it, they will come", the truth is more like: "If they go, please knock it down"
What other roles does central authority have? These are several. The obvious is clean water and safe streets. Free markets don't solve the former. They can also screw up the latter but so can policy. Dharavi, a slum in Mumbai, actually functions as a decent (mixed use) social space--of the kind advocated for strongly by Jane Jacobs, if a little lower-rent--and as a result, Dharavi is rather safe (this reviewer has visited twice). And it is no thanks to the state of Maharashtra that this is true (neither is the poor sanitation). Affordable housing and short commutes are other desiderata. Here is where Glaeser believes policy is most misguided. Expressways, building-height controls and home loan interest tax relief (which still exists in the US and favours owning over renting, which overwhelmingly means de-urbanising) all work against cities and encourage ex-urban sprawl by unlevelling the field so that suburbs and ex-burbs are cheaper and cities too expensive for all but the rich. Preservation--usually NIMBYism contrary to public interest according to the author--also hollows out city diversity and concentrates it into the hands of the wealthy, and (as would be expected) it is over-demanded by local interests, and those who fight development are invariably locally regarded as heroes not villains. Preservation does rather starkly levitate structures above the importance people too.
Cities are greener than nonurban localities as well, with much less carbon emission per capita (mostly from much less driving but also smaller dwelling footprints and fewer external walls). They are also rather egalitarian, attracting rich and poor alike and ideally giving residence to both, which is actually why the presence of urban poverty and low real wages are both signs of city success and not failure as is often assumed. The presence of many poor people does not mean the city made them that way, but that they want to be there too. An exlusively rich city is obviously one with few attractions to anyone without an excess of cash.
Again environmental policy often works against the naturally arising benefits of greenness and egalitarianism, not with them. Limits on California's growth make the state look green but are probably the opposite of that, as they push the browner activity into other, less efficient locations. Opposition to building upwards (including that of Ms Jacobs) is the surest way to drive up the cost of city housing beyond most people's reach. Average income people are essentially barred from living within Paris's peripherique. Not that Baron Hausmann cleared them all out, but the freezing of his plans in stone for the following century and a half surely has. London's green belt means commuters forced to live on the other side of it only experience it by sleeping through the extra 15 minutes imposed on their train journey, and find that property inside the belt is too expensive. Not that this means no policy is required, or that developers be allowed to concrete over Central Park. But that concentrated gain wins out at the cost of public loss in too many spheres. In London the ideas of Ken Livingstone, two-term left-wing mayor of last decade, have been better for both the city's poor and its rich, than have been those of Prince Charles (who luckily has very little policy influence).
Above all, the text exudes a celebration of how useful urban spaces have been to advancement of the human condition, and how irrepressible they are in aggregate, despite the hazards that come with them, and the awry policies of some that run them. The author did quit Boston for its suburbs eventually, partly in response to the incentives mentioned above. This reviewer remains where she can walk to her office, cannot realistically own a car (which would be no use anyway), has downstairs neighbours, and only occasionally hears birdsong rather than traffic outside her window. She is not likely to de-camp unless she discovers a way to live without her heart, because she would probably have to leave that behind.
Cities are the absence of physical space between people. They exist, and typically thrive, because although distance is dead thanks to technological development, proximity, paradoxically, matters more than ever. Concentration of ideas, talent, innovation, discovery into geographical clusters has never been disrupted, ever since human activity evolved far enough to make it happen the first time. The existence of close-quarters living has survived telephones, cheap fast travel and digital technology, all of which were supposed to have a hand in making cities obsolete. Books, which were the first type of IT for the masses, didn't do it either, which should have been a clue. Urbanisation has, instead, increased as these general purpose innovations have spread and integrated into culture. And actually, people overwhelmingly use them to contact those they already interact face to face with, rather than to compensate for not doing this.
Why? Well apparently in-person contact is, and has always been the best way to maximise trust, co-operation and generosity. And productivity too. Myriad social experiments reveal this but so do real life experiences. Your reviewer very occasionally runs competitive races and likes to believe she loathes them, but uncannily she performs better in them than the rest of the time. Workers in general expend more effort if next to someone else trying harder. Inspiration and competition are things that few folks are immune from. And they produce individual and wider benefits so people seek them out, and locate themselves where these are most available. Cities also eschew social convention and invariably end up more diverse, and accordingly creative (and destructive). Village communities can enforce conformity under the sanction of exclusion. Hard to do that to any resident of Los Angeles. Or Tokyo. Loose immigration policies only enhance such benefits.
Not that cities will always magically arise, organise themselves perfectly and prosper. When the various fifth-century invaders appropriated the well-run towns built by the Romans they allowed the infrastucture to decay (or they smashed it), and an age of urban empire was replaced by rural stagnation. Non diverse single-industry metro areas without wide and high education (Detroit, Liverpool) suffered serious depopulation and de-skilling when those industries were disrupted. And because cities are about people way more than they are about structures, policy makers consistently discover the impossibility of building them back to greatness with swanky new libraries or sports stadiums or new unwanted neighourhoods. After all, a city in decline is pretty much definable as having too much structure relative to people already. In fact managed shrinkage is the smarter reality-embracing policy, and decent examples are present in Leipzig and Pittsburgh. Instead of: "If you build it, they will come", the truth is more like: "If they go, please knock it down"
What other roles does central authority have? These are several. The obvious is clean water and safe streets. Free markets don't solve the former. They can also screw up the latter but so can policy. Dharavi, a slum in Mumbai, actually functions as a decent (mixed use) social space--of the kind advocated for strongly by Jane Jacobs, if a little lower-rent--and as a result, Dharavi is rather safe (this reviewer has visited twice). And it is no thanks to the state of Maharashtra that this is true (neither is the poor sanitation). Affordable housing and short commutes are other desiderata. Here is where Glaeser believes policy is most misguided. Expressways, building-height controls and home loan interest tax relief (which still exists in the US and favours owning over renting, which overwhelmingly means de-urbanising) all work against cities and encourage ex-urban sprawl by unlevelling the field so that suburbs and ex-burbs are cheaper and cities too expensive for all but the rich. Preservation--usually NIMBYism contrary to public interest according to the author--also hollows out city diversity and concentrates it into the hands of the wealthy, and (as would be expected) it is over-demanded by local interests, and those who fight development are invariably locally regarded as heroes not villains. Preservation does rather starkly levitate structures above the importance people too.
Cities are greener than nonurban localities as well, with much less carbon emission per capita (mostly from much less driving but also smaller dwelling footprints and fewer external walls). They are also rather egalitarian, attracting rich and poor alike and ideally giving residence to both, which is actually why the presence of urban poverty and low real wages are both signs of city success and not failure as is often assumed. The presence of many poor people does not mean the city made them that way, but that they want to be there too. An exlusively rich city is obviously one with few attractions to anyone without an excess of cash.
Again environmental policy often works against the naturally arising benefits of greenness and egalitarianism, not with them. Limits on California's growth make the state look green but are probably the opposite of that, as they push the browner activity into other, less efficient locations. Opposition to building upwards (including that of Ms Jacobs) is the surest way to drive up the cost of city housing beyond most people's reach. Average income people are essentially barred from living within Paris's peripherique. Not that Baron Hausmann cleared them all out, but the freezing of his plans in stone for the following century and a half surely has. London's green belt means commuters forced to live on the other side of it only experience it by sleeping through the extra 15 minutes imposed on their train journey, and find that property inside the belt is too expensive. Not that this means no policy is required, or that developers be allowed to concrete over Central Park. But that concentrated gain wins out at the cost of public loss in too many spheres. In London the ideas of Ken Livingstone, two-term left-wing mayor of last decade, have been better for both the city's poor and its rich, than have been those of Prince Charles (who luckily has very little policy influence).
Above all, the text exudes a celebration of how useful urban spaces have been to advancement of the human condition, and how irrepressible they are in aggregate, despite the hazards that come with them, and the awry policies of some that run them. The author did quit Boston for its suburbs eventually, partly in response to the incentives mentioned above. This reviewer remains where she can walk to her office, cannot realistically own a car (which would be no use anyway), has downstairs neighbours, and only occasionally hears birdsong rather than traffic outside her window. She is not likely to de-camp unless she discovers a way to live without her heart, because she would probably have to leave that behind.