Triumph of the City
How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier
by Edward L. Glaeser · first published 2011
50% recommend50% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Well-researched urban economics case for density: cities spread knowledge, spark innovation and productivity, and beat suburbs. Suits anyone wondering about housing, zoning, and why tech clusters in cities.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
A pioneering urban economist offers fascinating, even inspiring proof that the city is humanity's greatest invention and our best hope for the future. America is an urban nation. More than two thirds of us live on the 3 percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive, environmentally unfriendly... Or are they? As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural and economic terms) places to live. New Yorkers, for instance, live longer t
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Word about this problem is trickling out, slowly—I like to cite Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City and Ryan Avent's The Gated City on the subject—but I think a lot of people simply don't understand supply and demand. One time in Seattle I was driving home a friend, who was in law school, and she complained…
on “You Are Naturally Short Housing” ↗If you're interested in this topic, Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking and Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City are both worth reading. The former explains how "free" parking isn't really free and how it distorts a lot of behavior, and the latter is about what cities are good for and how to build healthy cities…
on “Cars Kill Cities” ↗Why are you/we trying to force density when it's so obvious that most people want the exact opposite? The problem is that the playing field isn't level: as Edward Glaeser points out in his book, The Triumph of the City (highly recommended; http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...), there are numerous institutional barriers to urban living, including, in no particular order: 1) Mortgage interest…
on “The Great Cul-De-Sac Problem And How To Alleviate It.” ↗This is a perspicacious comment; if you're curious about more, see Edward Glaeser's book The Triumph of the City (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...), which is quite good on 1) how density promotes idea transmission, 2) the environmental consequences of cities, and 3) transportation…
on “Making Seattle my home” ↗they exist for a reason: water, sewage, traffic, pollution Not really. See Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City, Matt Yglesias's The Rent is Too Damn High, and Ryan Avent's The Gated City for more; pay particularly close attention to the sections about how urban life tends to be far more sustainable than alternatives.
on “Dumb rules prevent Silicon Valley from building needed houses and offices” ↗…homelessness, largely because of the soaring cost of housing." But he doesn't mention how supply and demand affect pricing, as Matt Yglesias does in The Rent is Too Damn High or Edward Glaeser does in The Triumph of the City. Both writers have correctly observed that many urban jurisdictions prevent housing from being built to accommodate growing demand; as a result, prices rise. It's not primarily tech companies or their…
on “Why Silicon Valley is not the second coming of the Gilded Age” ↗…districts were functional, or at least more functional than most of them are now. In addition, safe and functional urban neighborhoods tend to be expensive because of zoning (see Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City for more on this). What would happen if we had cities in which housing weren't so expensive?
on “Why Apple’s Suburban Spaceship Could Lose the War for Tech Talent” ↗> I am super disappointed that they chose Long Island City Edward Glaeser's research on the economic and social benefits from density, summarized in Triumph of the City [1] and referenced in this guy's videos [2][3], is worth reviewing. Long story short, agglomeration breeds efficiencies which lead to further agglomeration. New York can uniquely offer things other cities…
on “Amazon Selects New York City and Northern Virginia for New Headquarters” ↗…restricted housing since the '70s (https://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-...) and yet we've also seen increasing economic returns since then to those superstar cluster cities (The Triumph of the City is a good and readable description: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/books/review/Silver-t.htm...). So yeah, there's no housing crisis in Eastern Oregon, but there are also no jobs and none of the…
on “Washington Can’t Solve a Housing Crisis That Doesn’t Exist” ↗…large part because of a) building codes that prevent tall buildings and b) how schools are funded), which the author gets to some extent. If you're interested in the issue, try Edward Glaeser's book The Triumph of the City: http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health... .
on “The American suburbs are a giant Ponzi scheme” ↗If you're very interested in your question, I highly recommend Ed Glaser's Triumph of the City[1]. Short answer: Density is valuable, and developing a new dense area is difficult. No one is going to pay for a skyscraper or a cute, tiny Victorian house in the middle of nowhere because the demand…
on “Is San Francisco The Brooklyn To Silicon Valley's Unbuilt Manhattan?” ↗…weight with the people already in SF. As it stands, property owners in SF can exclude Texans through voting. I cite this as a thought experiment, not as a proposal. Further reading: Edward Glaeser, The Triumph of the City.
on “San Francisco zoning: Needs more density and tall buildings” ↗…apartment complexes would be built if it were legal to do so, and the benefits would extend far beyond fiber connections (see, for example, Matt Yglesias's The Rent Is Too Damn High or Edward Glaeser's The Triumph of the City for more).
on “Why Google Fiber will never come to Seattle” ↗…land and construction costs established by the free market. Interesting comment overall, but this does not appear to be true: see The Rent is Too Damn High (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0078XGJXO/) and The Triumph of the City (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...) for more detail on how height limits and parking minimums in particular prevent the housing market from functioning, especially in desirable…
on “Rental home shortage is America's next housing crisis” ↗Boy, if there's one thing I always find myself saying when I visit a big city, it's "hey, this is nice but you know what it needs? More people." You're being sarcastic but it's actually true, per Triumph of the City (http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Health...)
on “San Francisco would be a much better city with twice the population” ↗