Why Cities Matter — Triumph of the City

Edward Glaeser’s introduction: the entire world population would fit in Texas at townhouse density. The city as humanity’s defining invention rather than its problem.

Part of the New City reading list — the books Kyle worked through while building the The New City thesis. Indexed on that page.

Notes

• By: E. Glaeser
• Introduction: Our Urban Species
• Although the world’s entire population could fit in Texas with a townhouse for each of us, we choose to cluster into cities. Why are so many cultural movements based out of these conglomerations of individuals? The rise and fall and rise of New York introduces us to the central paradox of the modern metropolis—proximity has become ever more valuable as the cost of connecting across long distances has fallen. New York’s story is unique in its operatic grandeur, but the key elements that drove the city’s spectacular rise, sad decline, and remarkable rebirth can be found in cities like Chicago and London and Milan, as well.
• Ultimately, the job of urban government isn’t to fund buildings or rail lines that can’t possibly cover their costs, but to care for the city’s citizens. A mayor who can better educate a city’s children so that they can find opportunity on the other side of the globe is succeeding, even if his city is getting smaller. Urban structures may stand for centuries, but urban populations are fluid. More than a quarter of Manhattan’s residents didn’t live there five years ago. Poor people constantly come to New York an dSao Paulo and Mumbai in search of something better, a fact of urban life that should be celebrated.
• Few slogans are as silly as the environmental mantra “Think globally, act locally.” Good environmentalism requires a worldwide perspective and global action, not the narrow outlook of a single neighborhood trying to keep out builders. We must recognize that if we try to make one neighborhood greener by stopping new building, we can easily make the world browner by pushing new development to someplace far less environmentally friendly.
• The strength that comes from human collaboration is the central truth behind civilization’s success and the primary reason why cities exist. To understand our cities and what to do about them, we must hold on to those truths and dispatch harmful myths. We must discard the view that environmentalism means living around trees and that urbanites should always fight to preserve a city’s physical past. We must stop idolizing home ownership, which favors suburban tract homes over high-rise apartments, and stop romanticizing rural villages. We should eschew the simplistic view that better long-distance communication will reduce our desire and need to be near one another. Above all, we must free ourselves from our tendency to see cities as their buildings and remember that the real city is made of flesh, not concrete.