Edward Glaeser

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“Silicon Valley Really Differs From A Traditional City”

December 2, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Urban economist Edward Glaeser has a vested interest, of course, but he’s right when he says that the city is humanity’s greatest invention. One of the hallmarks of a healthy metropolis is a very diverse economy that can survive the vicissitudes of any one industry. Silicon Valley has thus far defied that rule. From an interview with Glaeser at Medium:

Question:

What works and doesn’t work about Silicon Valley?

Edward Glaeser:

Now Silicon Valley is, of course, very successful. It is a place that typifies idea creation. And, I think, almost single-handedly makes the case that new technologies do not make face-to-face contact obsolete… Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, right? Instead of saying, “Go telecommute,” she says you’ve got to show up because face-to-face contact really matters. It has lots of examples — these famous stories of people in the early days of Silicon Valley exchanging ideas at Walker’s Wagon Wheel (restaurant) and all that’s great.

There are ways, however, in which Silicon Valley really differs from a traditional city… First, it’s not all that diverse as an urban economy. That’s one of the things that makes you wonder whether or not it can continue to be as innovative as it has been. There’s a question of whether it will manage to have the same level of idea flows that it had in the past, because it is so singularly focused.

Second, the fact that they’ve made it so difficult to build means that these crappy starter homes are over $2 million. It’s insane. This means they are doing a very poor job of providing employment and economic possibilities for middle-income Americans.

Great cities of the past, be it Chicago or New York, when they got successful and they had an economic engine that was running, they built up around it, right? So think about the stockyards in Chicago. They built up around that thing and millions of people came to the city and found economic opportunity…

And the third point, which is related to this, is that the great cities of the past are archipelagos of neighborhoods. So when you think of what you can get in Chicago, for example, you can get living on the Gold Coast in a historic beautiful apartment building. You can live in a glass tower on the lake. You can live in a lower-density apartment area in Lincoln Park. You can get something within the city that feels like a suburban neighborhood. What that means is that as your life changes, and as your tastes change, you can have any number of urban options in which to live.

Silicon Valley kind of has one model. It has slightly higher-density single-family detached housing and slightly lower-density single-family housing… And I think this is what’s going on with the move to San Francisco, especially the ones that specialize in young, hip people. Their employees don’t want that. They don’t want the ranch house in the suburb. They actually want to live in the hip city…”•

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“It Is Better To Think Of Happiness As One Utility Among Many”

May 18, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech | Permalink

In a Boston Globe essay, economist Edward Glaeser argues that happiness should be a goal but not the goal. An excerpt:

“What we know now, however, is that the mistake lies in thinking happiness is the be-all and end-all to judging how effective a municipality is operating for its citizens. In a sense, putting happiness above all else is just as foolish as economists who think money is the only objective or doctors who can’t imagine anything that trumps health. Happiness, money, and health are all good goals, but they are rarely the only things people are striving for.

Because, if quality of life is so important, why do people choose to keep living — and moving — to ‘unhappy’ cities? If people in Rust Belt cities like Milwaukee or Detroit are so dissatisfied, why don’t they just move to a new place where they’d be more happy? Because most humans are willing to sacrifice happiness and satisfaction if the price is right — and we’re probably better off for it.

The debate over whether happiness should be life’s ultimate currency is ancient. Greek philosopher Epicurus opined ‘that pleasure is the end and aim,’ while his contemporary Epictetus countered, ‘What is our nature? To be free, noble, self-respecting . . . We must subordinate pleasure to these principles.’ More recently, Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century British thinker, popularized the notion that humans should maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Kant argued that our goal should not be happiness, which does not automatically follow moral behavior, but rather act so as to be worthy of happiness.

Most people, however, are less theoretical and more practical in terms of what they’re willing to trade off for happiness. In fact, it is better to think of happiness as one utility among many, rather than a supreme desideratum.”

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“Pickpocketing Is More Or Less Dead In This Country”

February 25, 2011 in Books, Excerpts, Urban Studies | Permalink

Joe Keohane has an interesting piece, “The Lost Art of Pickpocketing,” on Slate. An excerpt:

“Pickpocketing in America was once a proud criminal tradition, rich with drama, celebrated in the culture, singular enough that its practitioners developed a whole lexicon to describe its intricacies. Those days appear to be over. ‘Pickpocketing is more or less dead in this country,’ says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, whose new book Triumph of the City, deals at length with urban crime trends. ‘I think these skills have been tragically lost. You’ve got to respect the skill of some pickpocket relative to some thug coming up to you with a knife. A knife takes no skill whatsoever. But to lift someone’s wallet without them knowing …'”

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