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"Triumph of the City"

Our greatest invention

Nov 9th 2011, 22:22 by The Economist online

EDWARD GLAESER, an urban economist and professor at Harvard University, explains why cities are as important as ever

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typingmonkey

Clive et al, I think you misunderstand what Glaeser says. He himself lives in a suburb, as I myself have in the past. We like things about suburbs and are fortunate to have the resources to choose to live there.

However, throughout every time and country on earth, cities have been and will presumably continue to be the configurations most conducive to aggregating and leveraging human productivity. Not only do they allow 'smart people to learn from each other' as Mr. Glaeser says, they allow for something even more fundamental to human prosperity: the specialization of labor.

For this reason, they are the global springboards of the middle class. Young/poor people don't go to the country to make their fortunes, they go to cities. And when they do, they can't initially afford leafy suburbs and the cars necessary to live in them. They need efficient housing with access to efficient public transit. That can ONLY happen with one thing: density.

So building up IS the answer. And cities which restrict density either by zoning or excessive attention to 'historic preservation' only diminish the vitality of the city and the poor person's ability to join it. That said, no one advocates 'letting developers trash our cities'. Obviously developers will seek to maximize returns, but they succeed only to the extent that they build in harmony with the local context. In other words, they will build what the market demands where it demands it. So how can a developer trash a city by providing what the city's residents demand? Are we not believers in the free market here? Zoning is the worst form of socialism.

Of course city governments are obliged to provide services to new populations, and should do a better job making developers pay fully for these. But those costs will again guide development to where it should be: near existing or planned services. So in exchange for liberalizing zoning laws, force developers to pay for whatever utilities, roads, schools, and transit their development will require. Then stand back, take a deep breath and watch. They will not put a 500' condo tower in your quiet neighborhood because they couldn't afford to turn Elm Street into a broad boulevard with a streetcar line. So they will build dense housing and workspace in the underutilized old industrial districts of your ciy's historic urban core, near new jobs and services.

Rob S

Glaser continues to promote am outmoded perspective of what a city should be. Today people do not have to congregate in small, cramped areas to carry out their collaborative work to build things. That is strictly 20th Century. Nor do then have to go to a "downtown" such as central Boston for food or entertainment. A modern city can be more effective if its activities are distributed, rather than congregated in a central core.

Communications and computer engineers struggled for years building larger, more complex systems with central processor technology becoming ever more elaborate in dealing with the problem of funneling data and energy into and out of a CPU, with supercomputers built by Cray and IBM reaching the pinnacle of that technology. Now, this approach has been supplanted by the use of large numbers of cheap commodity processors linked together in various configurations.

It is time that urban planners awoke to the advantages that distributed activities have over a core design.

"Now, this approach has been supplanted by the use of large numbers of cheap commodity processors linked together in various configurations."
The architecture of large scale computing has evolved a lot. But the lattest "cloud computing" is driven by computer centers or "server farms" consisting of thousands and thousands of "small" processors housed in large buildings.
Perhaps the analogy is having many cottage industries all clustered around, you got it, downtown.

Good point, Headlessly. Except you can put that server farm anywhere in the world. The criteria for location include cheap land, cheap power and cheap cooling. Does that sound like downtown Boston (maybe cheap cooling)? There is no longer any need to co-locate it with the users, who are also scattered all over the world. A downtown serves no useful function in this structure.

Stephen Morris

What is the evidence that cities are more efficient ways of organising economic activity? Specifically, how do we know that - in this day-and-age of telecommunications - the existence of cities arises from superior efficiency in organising economic activity, and not merely from superior efficiency in organising rent-seeking?

This is a question that has been asked many times on The Economist but to date no coherent answer has been forthcoming.

ashbird in reply to Stephen Morris

Good Q. I have been trying to get myself educated about economics by reading a paper bearing that name (And better - it reads THE ECONOMIST. Dictionary says the word means person who knows stuff about economics.) This is a wish I want fulfilled before I die.

I read all the stuff including the generous postings from commenters. So far I still can't get rid of the nagging feeling that whenever there is a Q, like the good one you just asked, the answer is "Your guess is as good as mine." Now if there is a better answer besides that, the knower would proceed to use it to make money since it wouldn't make sense to share it unless he is a raving communist. So poor me with my shrunken head, everything in this field is kind of like a Rorschach if you know what I mean.

You asked the wrong question. People don't thrive on economic activity alone. They cluster around centres of culture and enjoy being around other people too. No doubt telecommunications will continue to reshape the world, but the pace of technology change does not necessarily dictate the pace of change in people.

See, if you go outside Economics, even the Qs are better. Just half kidding. :)

It is said the disciplined study (keyword "disciplined") of human behavior is quackery. People who offer that critique don't know what "disciplined" means and know zitch about what they critique.
Their chief contribution to the world is making a public mockery of themselves without help from anyone else by showing off a damaged hair from the tail of one elephant, boasting for all to hear and see: "I have all the elephants".

On my own behalf and mine only, thank you HRA for your constructive input.

The Q of city planning and the good and bad about highrises cannot be approached by examaining one section of one hair from the tail of one elephant. As with all problems, they are complex. They haven't become problems because the cause is simple. A responsible problem-solver needs to maintain an open mind for the perspectives responsibly harvested from other diciplines.

In response to commenter “Heedlessly Running Around”, I asked precisely the question I intended to ask.

However, Heedlessly Running Around’s comment does raise a whole new set of questions concerning Glaeser’s arguments.

Heedlessly Running Around astutely observes (as Glaeser does not) that people might prefer - or not prefer – to live in cities for reasons entirely unrelated to their supposed “efficiency”. People might prefer to live in cities even if they were not the most “efficient” means of creating ever cheaper plasma screens(*). Alternatively, people may prefer the opposite: they may place a high subjective value on intangibles which are lost in city life.

For any individual, the choice to live - or not to live - in a city depends on weighing up all the tangible and intangible subjective costs and benefits.

The issue of rent-seeking (which Glaeser and others fail to address) is important because it leaves open the worrying possibility that people’s choices are driven in part by the desire to avoid being rentees, rather than by a preference for city life.

It may be noted that Glaeser slides seamlessly from making empirical observations about the productive efficiency of agglomeration to spruiking individual preferences concerning how people ought to live. It is not clear whether Glaeser is simply unaware of the is-ought fallacy, or – perhaps more worryingly – he is aware but proceeds with a form of intellectual dishonesty nonetheless.

- - - - -

(*) Which - as we all know - is the object and purpose of human existence.

great uncle clive

Eight of the world's top ten most livable cities, according to a recent Economist article, are the product of British-style town planning... with its emphasis on high-amenity urban centres, parks and separate industrial and residential neighbourhoods.

Edward Glaeser's thinking is the complete negation of that thinking.

He would allow high-rises anywhere... No distinct downtown... And no quiet residential areas

We all know that British-style cities can be a bit sterile... There should be more small family businesses allowed in residential areas... Jane Jacobs was right on that one... But we can't just throw out the regulatory process and let property developers trash our cities

ashbird in reply to great uncle clive

Many people like highrises. There is nothinbg you can do. I personally find them alienating. I haven't listened to the audio. This is just a comment to another comment. Hope it has something to do with the audio instead of nothing.

great uncle clive in reply to ashbird

You didn't miss much, not listening to the audio... a very boring delivery... and he came across as a schill for property developers... arguing they should be allowed to put up high-rises wherever... and let someone else deal with the consequences... spoiled vistas... no schools... sewage connections

I live in Vancouver... a late British Empire planned city... with 90% of its developable land zoned single-family (room for improvement there)... but one thing we got right was a high-density, high-amenity livable downtown... like Vienna and Paris... unlike London, Detroit and Los Angeles... and I like it... and Edward Glaeser's approach would destroy it... Any developer would rather build a high-rise on cheap land in the suburbs than on expensive land downtown

Highrises belong downtown and in clusters around transportation nubs... PLANNED

The free market is good at producing manufactured goods sold at retail... the further away from that core, the more wretched free market economix becomes... the free market cannot make a livable city... which are made as public power centres by/for the ruling classes NOT by the entrepreneurial classes... another of Edward Glaeser's fallacies

What credence can you attach to a guy wearing a spotted tie with a striped shirt?... I mean... Wot next?... Sox with sandals

ashbird in reply to great uncle clive

I'll take your word for it on the audio.

But what's wrong with a spotted tie with a striped shirt? That's infinitely better than a striped tie with a spotted shirt. And socks with sandals seems better than socks with socks.

Everything is relative. Maybe mid-rise is the solution. But then what qualifies as low and high and therefore mid becomes an aching philosophical Q.

But Vancouver RENTS are low... It is possible to live without owning your residence... Ask Beethoven

Sorry to ignore you Ashbird... but another thing that bugged me about this interview was Edward Glaeser's glorification of CHOICE

Here in Vancouver... a 350 square foot one bedroom apartment costs the same as a 1000 square foot studio apartment... thousands of girls bankrolled by their daddies want one bedroom apartments NOT studios... and will buy any pokey dump provided it has a bed-sized cupboard... Guess what property developers build

For comparison's sake... in the Sixties... the minimum size of a studio apartment was 400 square feet... and a one bedroom apartment had to be at least 600 square feet

The girls think a one bedroom apartment is bigger than a studio... that it consists of the studio living space PLUS a bedroom... hardeeharhar... the bedroom is subtracted from the living space... You can have a commodious 400 square foot studio apartment... but if you subtract a bedroom, you destroy the living space

I like to use this to explain the flaw in women's equality... Feminists think that women's equality in the workplace is in addition to nice homes and families... Guess what... women's equality in the workplace has been achieved at the cost of home and family... family life has been ruined by women's equality in the workplace... and which do women value more?

Choice is not an end that justifies any means... rotten food and rotten homes are not to be allowed just because people can be sold on them

Tenured professors are up there with post office workers as the world's most useless people

ashbird in reply to great uncle clive

I sure am in a writing mood today. It is a long weekend in the US with Verteran Day.

Beethoven was deaf before he passed. What on earth has it to do with anything we are talking about? Nothing. Just to show you what a non sequitur is.

Following your info piece on rents in Vanvouver was informative enough. Thanks.

But LaContra was right, please, no more talk on Homemaker Allowance again. You already have a website on that. Just provide that for shorthand next time you cannot resist to repeat. Then it can be read in detailed hand infinitely times. Ain't that nice? I think you way over-simplify all the cause-and-effect variables, even though you are smart enough to like Beethoven (kidding!). I don't buy many social scientists' discoveries and insights. Their problem lies in belaboring the obvious. You belabor your oblivious. Anyway, I am not reading that stuff again for myself. BTW, some tenured professors and some PO workers qualify as what you describe. My mail person brings me mail rain or snow. She disqualifies. Happy listening.

great uncle clive in reply to ashbird

Don't be a meanie, ashbird... you've been listening to too many original instruments

One big consideration is that... this last forty years... we have been brainwashed into buying real estate at inflated prices... driving them ever higher... and the economy was hooked on that process

And you need only consider people like Beethoven and Mozart... who led incredibly productive lives... without conceiving of owning their homes... What's it all about?

When the collapse of western civilisation gets written up... it will be enscribed on our gravestones... GOOD FOR PROPERTY VALUES

Where is LaContra BTW?... He'd freak if he saw the 100+ recommends a homemaker allowance received on a recent Democracy in America blog

And here in Vancouver... We only get mail when it's overcast... when its sunny or windy or raining or snowing... forget it!

ashbird in reply to great uncle clive

The piano is not an original instrument. It evolved from the harpsichord and the harsichord from the lyre and the lyre from ....I no longer remember as I personally don't go back that far.

Neither Mozart nor Beethoven had the wherewithall to clean a house. The former had a wife for a homemaker who didn't know how to clean, and the latter, God bless him, didn't even have a wife. So you see even then many other factors came to bear on the Homemaker issue. So I think men should learn to clean and women should learn to teach them how to clean. Now this applies equally whether it is a house or a condo or a flat or apartment or whatever other names the 600 sq feet the damn space is known by.

The collapse of Western civilization would be, in my humblebut serious opinion, due to not enough thinking done by everyone and too much talking done by everyone, which is what we are doing right now in writing dumb comments in dumb blogs.

I sure miss LaContra. He is one of a few who post the fewest dumb and the funniest.

Sorry your mail is so screwed up. I think you must have a postman rather than a postwoman who was formerly a homemaker.

I have enjoyed being a meanie a great deal. Hahaha! And thanks. :)

Rob S in reply to great uncle clive

My suspicion, too, Uncle Clive. Urban planners are either shills for downtown real estate owners and developers or stupid dupes. Which category Glaeser falls into i do not know, but i will give him the benefit of doubt and assume he is not stupid.

The attire apparently is a uniform that identifies him with some obscure social society. As it is compulsory, his credibility should not be judged on that basis.

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Named after the hero of Shakespeare's "The Tempest", an expert on the power of books and the arts, this blog features literary insight and cultural commentary from our correspondents, and includes our coverage of the art market.

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