Urban Economix ~ Glaeser on Power of Cities

Harvard Economics Professor Edward Glaeser writes about "the economics of cities, housing, segregation, obesity, crime, innovation and other subjects" in the NYTimes Economix column. Several of his pieces are especially worth reading, including...

• Cities Do It Better -- Megacities are successful partly because "urban scale and density strengthen markets by bringing together an abundance of buyers and sellers in an information-rich setting";
• Why Humanity Loves, and Needs, Cities -- Because cities "connect people and enable them to learn from one another, [so] an increasingly information-intensive economy will only make urban density more valuable";
• A Tale of Many Cities -- On "the enormous value that human beings place on being near one another";
• The Lorax Was Wrong: Skyscrapers Are Green -- "In almost every metropolitan area, we found the central city residents emitted less carbon than the suburban counterparts";
• What Makes Cities Great -- "America does not prosper because of its “amber waves of grain” but because the nation’s human capital, especially in its “alabaster cities,” thrives in a connected world";
• Slumdog Entrepreneurs -- The "Dharavi neighborhood of Mumbai is often described as the largest “slum” in the world. [...] The hygienic conditions are awful, but the area doesn’t feel desperate. It is a hive of economic activity";
• Why Has Globalization Led to Bigger Cities? -- "Globalization and technological change have increased the returns to being smart; human beings are a social species that get smart by hanging around smart people. [...] Knowledge moves more quickly at close quarters, and as a result, cities are often the gateways between continents and civilizations."
  

Triumph of the City ~ Glaeser on Skyscrapers...

The Atlantic excerpts Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser's new book Triumph of the City in How Skyscrapers Can Save the City...

"The magic of cities comes from their people, but those people must be well served by the bricks and mortar that surround them. Cities need roads and buildings that enable people to live well and to connect easily with one another. [...] in the most desirable cities, whether they’re on the Hudson River or the Arabian Sea, height is the best way to keep prices affordable and living standards high. The success of our cities, the world’s economic engines, increasingly depends on abstruse decisions made by zoning boards and preservation committees. It certainly makes sense to control construction in dense urban spaces, but I would replace the maze of regulations now limiting new construction with three simple rules. First, cities should replace the lengthy and uncertain permitting processes now in place with a simple system of fees. [...] Second, historic preservation should be limited and well defined. [...] Finally, individual neighborhoods should have more power to protect their special character. [...] Great cities are not static -- they constantly change, and they take the world along with them. When New York and Chicago and Paris experienced great spurts of creativity and growth, they reshaped themselves to provide new structures that could house new talent and new ideas. [...] As America struggles to regain its economic footing, we would do well to remember that dense cities are also far more productive than suburbs, and offer better-paying jobs. Globalization and new technologies seem to have only made urban proximity more valuable -- young workers gain many of the skills they need in a competitive global marketplace by watching the people around them. Those tall buildings enable the human interactions that are at the heart of economic innovation, and of progress itself."

Innovation and the Global City ~ Glaeser Keynote

RPA’s 2011 Regional Assembly -- Innovation and the Global City -- explored what global cities are doing to remain competitive on the world stage. Here's keynote talk by Harvard's Edward Glaeser, author of The Triumph of the City (starting at ~10 min in)...

City Journal ~ 20 Years of Urban Affairs & Ideas

Thanks to Brandon Fuller from Charter Cities for pointing to this fantastic 20th Anniversary issue of City Journal with several great articles, including Fuller's own piece with Paul Romer on Cities from Scratch, Edward Glaeser on New York as Start-Up City, Sol Stern on Tel Aviv the Now City, Mario Polèse on Why Big Cities Matter More than Ever, and Victor Davis Hanson on The Destiny of Cities. About CJ, writes Brian Anderson...

"Twenty years ago, the Manhattan Institute launched City Journal as an intellectual and journalistic response to New York City’s downward spiral and to the illness of the American city generally. Most observers believed that illness fatal; City Journal did not. [...] Since our first issue, City Journal has held that cities can and should be the drivers of economic growth, so it’s fitting that a package of stories in this issue offers a cutting-edge assessment of the economy of cities. [...] We’d like to think that the next 20 years will be a time when the twenty-first-century city comes into its own as a place where freedom flourishes, crime is low, commerce and culture blossom, and all families can send their kids to good schools -- and that the ideas developed in City Journal will help bring about that future."

Hear, hear!

Education & Liberty ~ Sarmiento Symbolizes...

Professor Edward Glaeser writes in the Globe about A powerful symbol for education and liberty, Domingo Sarmiento, activist, intellectual, writer, statesman, and seventh President of Argentina...

"On Commonwealth Avenue near Gloucester Street, there stands a large statue of a stern, heavy-set Argentine. The statue is largely ignored, which is a pity because its subject, Domingo Sarmiento, is worth understanding. He spent his life fighting for education and good political institutions and Boston was his beau ideal: Sarmiento’s victories helped create Argentina’s early 20th century prosperity. [...] As president, from 1868 to 1874, Sarmiento invested in public education and nation-building infrastructure, like telegraph lines. After his presidency, he returned to educational administration, and he helped push though a landmark education law that made primary school in Argentina free and compulsory. Stable politics and a more educated population helped Argentina prosper and the rich nation offered a statue of Sarmiento to his beloved Boston in 1913 [...] Sarmiento symbolizes the power of education and liberty -- two great ideas eternally intertwined with our city. The knowledge that he acquired here reminds us that the ideas created in the dense streets of cities can improve lives throughout the world. But the dark history of Argentina during the 20th century warns us of how much can go wrong when governments fail and countries invest too little in their human capital. Sarmiento’s message matters more than ever."

How true. Argentina should be as prosperous as Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavia combined, but no. Learning why not is crucial to not screwing up going forward.

City Solutions ~ Kunzig in NatGeo on Urban Hope

Very compelling piece in my favorite monthly journal National Geographic on City Solutions by Robert Kunzig (with great associated photo gallery)! He writes about...

"Why cities are the best cure for our planet’s growing pains. [...] Urbanization is now good news. Expert opinion has shifted profoundly in the past decade or two. Though slums as appalling as Victorian London's are now widespread, and the Victorian fear of cities lives on, cancer no longer seems the right metaphor. On the contrary: With Earth's population headed toward nine or ten billion, dense cities are looking more like a cure -- the best hope for lifting people out of poverty without wrecking the planet. [...Says economist Edward Glaeser...] Successful cities "increase the returns to being smart" by enabling people to learn from one another. In cities with higher average education, even the uneducated earn higher wages; that's evidence of "human capital spillover." Spillover works best face-to-face. No technology yet invented -- not the telephone, the Internet, or videoconferencing -- delivers the fertile chance encounters that cities have delivered since the Roman Forum was new. [...] It's easy to see why economists would embrace cities, warts and all, as engines of prosperity. It has taken a bit longer for environmentalists [...] Cities allow half of humanity to live on around 4 percent of the arable land, leaving more space for open country. Per capita, city dwellers tread more lightly in other ways as well, as David Owen explains in Green Metropolis. Their roads, sewers, and power lines are shorter and so use fewer resources. Their apartments take less energy to heat, cool, and light than do houses. Most important, people in dense cities drive less. Their destinations are close enough to walk to, and enough people are going to the same places to make public transit practical. In cities like New York, per capita energy use and carbon emissions are much lower than the national average."

The goodness goes on! Also check out the photos, of which these are but a sampling...

Recommended Readings... 080706

A few interesting items...

• Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser writes in the Globe reflecting on how the US began as a Revolution of urban rebels, a notable theme dating back to the Athenian polis.
• Two examples of NIMBY anti-liberty action groups in the news: Victoria Cheng writes in the Globe Moving in, moving out about redevelopment in Chinatown. Finally this blighted part of Boston is getting ever-more much-needed investment. But there's pushback from "community members" who want "development decisions back in the hands of those most affected" as opposed to the property owners, I suppose. Second, Sudbury homeowners protest a bike trail, writes Sarah Schweitzer in Suburban peace vs. pedal power, who quotes neighborhood watchdog Carole Wolfe, "Instead of solitude, you'd be having people." Shock! People would clearly be worse than the trains which previously used the right-of-way. Both of these are examples of democracy-gone-wrong with rich and poor people alike believing their opinion alone entitles them to unfettered influence over the property rights of others.
• Martin Fackler writes in the NYTimes that Japan Sees a Chance to Promote Its Energy Frugal Ways, pointing out that "Japan rushed to embrace these technologies back in the 1980s. Now the rest of the world is finally catching up."
• Christopher Shea in the Globe Brainiac Ideas Blog summarizes the skepticism surrounding Bill Gates's "Creative Capitalism".
• The WSJ delights again with a center-column article by Jane Spencer about Ahmed Ibrahim, the matchmaking cabbie!
• Two more stories about anti-Liberty policies in the US: Steve Hanke and Stephen Walters in the WSJ Blame Taxes for Baltimore's Rot. And Eric Uhlfelder in Barron's writes that prominent global companies have bolted the NYSE and are Taking the Over-the-Counter Route to U.S. because of the onerous burden and unfunded mandate (a.k.a. tax) of Sarbanes-Oxley.
• Patricia Cohen in the NYTimes writes that On Campus, the '60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire.
• Bloomberg reports that iRobot is seeking to expand beyond consumer and military markets and is exploring an oil-industry robot building on their MicroRig collaboration with Halliburton.
• Andrew Downie in the NYTimes writes Wanted: Skilled Workers for a Growing Economy in Brazil, about the sizzling growth prospects for this Latin giant which is finally blossoming economically.
• Joe Leahy in the FT writes in A passage through India that "the struggle is on to upgrade roads, rail and ports" and that "inadequate transport infrastructure and power capacity are increasingly limiting the country's economic potential."
• Two curious sex stories in TIME, one by Michiko Toyama entitled Where older dogs are learning new tricks, about the booming "elder porn" genre in Japan. Apparently not to be outdone, David Van Biema writes And God Said, "Just Do It." about churches urging spouses "to have hot sex -- and lots of it."
• Finally, several pieces on emerging happenings in China: Jake Hooker in the NYTimes writes that Quake Revealed Deficiences of China's Military, lamenting that "Chinese troops were eager, but they were unprepared to save lives." Jamil Anderlini in the FT writes that China tries to muzzle quake victim parents who are outraged by the corrupt Communist Party officialdom which allowed shoddy school buildings which disproportionately collapsed, killing kids during the recent quake. Juliet Ye and Geoffrey Fowler write in the WSJ that Chinese Bloggers Scale the 'Great Firewall' in Riot's Aftermath about citizen attempts to spread news despite official censorship. But all is not uniformly dismal and anti-Liberty in China, as Edward Cody writes in the Washington Post, A pioneering Chinese city eyes political reform: Seeks more open, softer socialism. Good.
  

Getting Better ~ Kenny Writes In Praise of Slums

Getting Better author Charles Kenny writes in the latest Foreign Policy Cities issue In Praise of Slums, that...

"...slums are better than the alternative. Most people who've experienced both rural and urban poverty choose to stay in slums rather than move back to the countryside. That includes hundreds of millions of people in the developing world over the past few decades -- and 130 million migrant workers in China alone. They follow a well-trodden path of seeking a better life in the bright lights of the city [...] Moving to cities makes economic sense -- rich countries are urbanized countries, and rich people are predominantly town and city dwellers. [...] all things considered, slum growth is a force for good. It could be an even stronger driver of development if leaders stopped treating slums as a problem to be cleared and started treating them as a population to be serviced, providing access to reliable land titles, security, paved roads, water and sewer lines, schools, and clinics. As Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser puts it, slums don't make people poor -- they attract poor people who want to be rich. So let's help them help themselves."

That's centrally why we have MIT Media Lab City Science Initiative.

Megacities ~ FT's Pilling on Urbanizing Humanity

Megacities -- writes David Pilling in the FT -- are humanity's future...

"By 2050, three-quarters of the world’s population will be urban. That means more -- and much bigger -- metropolises. [...] The character of cities -- and their larger cousins the megacities -- is being rapidly redefined [to mean] massive agglomerations, mostly in the developing world. In truth, more of the world’s population is moving to second-tier cities than to the megacities. But huge conurbations have a symbolic potency. For some, they represent a brave new world in which Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and others in the developing world are clambering from poverty. For others, the megacity is nothing less than a nightmare. [...] Whether we like it or not, it is no longer possible to keep the bulk of humanity down on the farm. By 2050, three-quarters of the world’s population will be urban. That means more cities -- and more megacities. “These megacities are a big part of humanity’s future and the prospect should be both exhilarating and terrifying,” says [Harvard's] Glaeser. The examples of Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai show that megacities don’t have to be monstrosities. For many of us, the megacity is our fate. The goal of humanity should be to manage that fate, not succumb to it."

Read the rest of the piece.

Get Out of Town ~ Lemann's Survey of City Books

New Yorker's Critic at Large Nicholas Lemann writes Get Out Of Town: Has the celebration of cities gone too far? surveying recent books on urbanization and city planning, including:

• Elijah Anderson’s The Cosmopolitan Canopy
• Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class & The Great Reset
• Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City
• John D. Kasarda/Greg Lindsay's Aerotropolis
• Doug Saunders's Arrival City
• James S. Russell's The Agile City