Triumph of the City
Currently attempting to read through Triumph of the City from cover to cover. I’m gonna do it this time.
I’m making pieces like this while I’m reading through to help keep the momentum going.
Remember, nothing beats reading the book itself. It’s chock-full of insights.
Introduction: Our Urban Species
Glaeser argues that this a key characteristic of cities that makes them so vital to the growth of regions and nations, and allows many cities like New York to remain relevant.
Glaeser argues for investing in people, in their human capital, rather than in places.
He asserts that in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the United States’ government should have investested in the people of New Orleans instead of sending billions on the city’s infrastructure.
Chapter 1: What Do They Make in Bangalore?
In this chapter, Glaeser discusses the rise (and sometimes fall) of Athens, Baghdad, Nagasaki, Bangalore, and Silicon Valley.
He describes how these ancient and modern cities maximized both the planned and unplanned proximity of skills and knowledge in boosting their wealth and prestige.
I found his account of the creation of the House of Wisdom by Baghdad’s Abassid caliphs and Japan’s designation of Nagasaki as a centre of Dutch Studies very fascinating.
Chapter 2: Why Do Cities Decline?
In the second chapter, Glaeser discusses the decline of cities. Particularly, they decline when they become one-trick ponies — they get good at one thing and fail to reinvent themselves. Or, worse, they implement policies that exacerbate their decline.
Glaeser uses several cities to illustrate his points, but Detroit is in particular focus in this bit.
The manufacturing cities fell because they abandoned the most vital features of city life... skills, small enterprises, and strong connections with the outside world.
The tendency to think that a city can build itself out of decline is an example of the edifice error, the tendency to think that abundant new building leads to urban success... But building is the result, not the cause, of success.
Realism pushes towards small, sensible projects, not betting a city’s future on a vast, expensive roll of the dice. The real payoff of these investments in amenities lies... in attracting the skilled residents who can really make a city rebound, especially if those residents can connect with the world economy.
Chapter 3: What’s Good About Slums?
In the third chapter, Glaeser mounts a defense of slums — the districts of cities inhabited by the poor. I was really excited about this chapter and read through it faster than any other bit of the book.
In a way, he separates urban poverty into two categories: the kind of poverty that allows for upward mobility and the kind that stagnated. He establishes that cities should expect to attract the urban poor, but cities should realize that they are failing when the poor aren’t experiencing urban mobility as the years go by.
The great urban poverty paradox is that if a city improves life for poor people currently living there by improving public schools or mass transit, that city will attract more poor people.
If a city is attracting continuing waves of the less fortunate, helping them succeed, watching them leave, and attracting new disadvantaged migrants, then it is succeeding at one of society’s most important functions.
When a single transportation mode, like driving or taking the subway, dominates, then the rich live closer to the city center and the poor live farther away. But when there are multiple modes of transit, then the poor live closer in order to gain access to public transport.
