What do you think?
Rate this book
The Economy of Cities
The thesis of this book is that cities are the primary drivers of economic development. Her main argument is that explosive economic growth derives from urban import replacement. Import replacement occurs when a city begins to locally produce goods that it formerly imported, e.g., Tokyo bicycle factories replacing Tokyo bicycle importers in the 1800s. Jacobs claims that import replacement builds up local infrastructure, skills, and production. Jacobs also claims that the increased production is subsequently exported to other cities, giving those other cities a new opportunity to engage in import replacement, thus producing a positive cycle of growth.
In the foremost chapter of the book, Jacobs argues that cities preceded agriculture. She argues that in cities trade in wild animals and grains allowed for the initial division of labor necessary for the discovery of husbandry and agriculture; these discoveries then moved out of the city due to land competition.
*from Wikpedia
In the foremost chapter of the book, Jacobs argues that cities preceded agriculture. She argues that in cities trade in wild animals and grains allowed for the initial division of labor necessary for the discovery of husbandry and agriculture; these discoveries then moved out of the city due to land competition.
*from Wikpedia
268 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1969
About the author
Jane Jacobs
68 books723 followersJane Jacobs, OC, O.Ont (May 4, 1916 – April 25, 2006) was an American-born Canadian writer and activist with primary interest in communities and urban planning and decay. She is best known for The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), a powerful critique of the urban renewal policies of the 1950s in the United States. The book has been credited with reaching beyond planning issues to influence the spirit of the times.
Along with her well-known printed works, Jacobs is equally well-known for organizing grassroots efforts to block urban-renewal projects that would have destroyed local neighborhoods. She was instrumental in the eventual cancellation of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, and after moving to Canada in 1968, equally influential in canceling the Spadina Expressway and the associated network of highways under construction.
Along with her well-known printed works, Jacobs is equally well-known for organizing grassroots efforts to block urban-renewal projects that would have destroyed local neighborhoods. She was instrumental in the eventual cancellation of the Lower Manhattan Expressway, and after moving to Canada in 1968, equally influential in canceling the Spadina Expressway and the associated network of highways under construction.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
August 25, 2016
"It blows cobwebs from the mind," wrote Christopher Lehmann-Haupt when he reviewed the book for the NY Times back in 1969. Forty-four years later (and just after completing a two-year masters program in urban planning), I would say that it made my brain explode (in spite of how un-academic that sounds).
Jacobs is best known for her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which sharply critiques the planning practice at the time. In the face of urban renewal in general and Robert Moses in particular, Jacobs described in great detail a new way to view cities. Although some of what she described is debatable (she's not a fan of parks), much of what she describes as good city fabric has become accepted by today's planning profession. Her mixed-use Complete Streets are now what cities across America are clamoring to recreate. As a result, nearly everyone with an urban planning degree (or just an obsessive love of cities) has read it.
The Economy of Cities goes well beyond what cities should look like and describes the requirements for economic development. Although, it's not a perfect toolkit, it is certainly full of food for thought about how urban economies can be fostered or squelched - valuable lessons for the thriving New Yorks and the dying Detroits alike. The later chapters give clear examples of the evolution in how differently types of work is done, how cities are shaped by innovation, and the importance of all the local support businesses for attracting a wide range of export firms.
Most incredible is the central premise of the text: Cities are primal and rural is secondary. This isn't a point of condescension, but rather a concept as bold as the Copernican Revolution was in its time, and disturbingly under-discussed in conversations about "rapid urbanization" and the planet's "urban future". Rather than imagining that the farms began first and people eventually formed cities (a very "Garden of Eden" view of the world), Jacobs demonstrates that cities (not by our standards but certainly dense concentrations of people) formed before any romanticized version of a farmer emerged.
I cannot understate the value of reading this book to planners, policy makers, business people, inventors, artists, and thinkers.
Jacobs is best known for her 1961 book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which sharply critiques the planning practice at the time. In the face of urban renewal in general and Robert Moses in particular, Jacobs described in great detail a new way to view cities. Although some of what she described is debatable (she's not a fan of parks), much of what she describes as good city fabric has become accepted by today's planning profession. Her mixed-use Complete Streets are now what cities across America are clamoring to recreate. As a result, nearly everyone with an urban planning degree (or just an obsessive love of cities) has read it.
The Economy of Cities goes well beyond what cities should look like and describes the requirements for economic development. Although, it's not a perfect toolkit, it is certainly full of food for thought about how urban economies can be fostered or squelched - valuable lessons for the thriving New Yorks and the dying Detroits alike. The later chapters give clear examples of the evolution in how differently types of work is done, how cities are shaped by innovation, and the importance of all the local support businesses for attracting a wide range of export firms.
Most incredible is the central premise of the text: Cities are primal and rural is secondary. This isn't a point of condescension, but rather a concept as bold as the Copernican Revolution was in its time, and disturbingly under-discussed in conversations about "rapid urbanization" and the planet's "urban future". Rather than imagining that the farms began first and people eventually formed cities (a very "Garden of Eden" view of the world), Jacobs demonstrates that cities (not by our standards but certainly dense concentrations of people) formed before any romanticized version of a farmer emerged.
I cannot understate the value of reading this book to planners, policy makers, business people, inventors, artists, and thinkers.
February 4, 2026
I have been stalling on writing a review of this book, I realize, and that is usually a sign that it gave me a lot to think about. This is not Jane Jacobs' magnum opus; that was "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", which she wrote several years before this. Instead, this is Jacobs' attempt to lay out, not so much a theory of how cities worked (as in her earlier, more famous work), but a theory of how economies worked.
In brief, she thought they worked via cities. No surprise there; she was always more interested in urban than suburban, small-town, or rural living (and was honest and clear about this). But Jacobs found that economics had made a similar mistake to that of city planners (who attempted to find ways for city-dwellers to pretend that they lived in the countryside), in that they tried to imagine cities as a sort of overgrown village, when in fact it was a different thing entirely. Because they did not understand what cities were, they did not understand what they were for. Therefore (because economic growth is nearly always accomplished via the growth of cities) they did not understand how economies worked.
The first thing Jacobs sets out to propose and explain, is that farms did not enable cities, but rather the reverse. On the face of it, this seems preposterous. However, as Jacobs points out, you could easily say (if you were unfamiliar with their history) that cities (as they are) could not exist without power plants to generate electricity (nearly everything in the city requires it). That might be taken to mean that therefore the power plants must have come first, and then their existence enabled cities. In fact, it was the growth of cities that (because they created enough demand in a concentrated area) enabled power plants to be made.
But, the original appearance of cities is not so well documented as the appearance of electricity, so it has been assumed that agriculture arose first, and from that came urban settlements. Jacobs proposes that it happened the other way, and an accumulation of people in one place is what made it both possible and desirable for hunter/gatherers to settle in one place, just outside an urban market, and produce food to trade to them for whatever early settlements were making.
This seemed so contrary to what I have previously understood that I stopped reading the book for a bit of independent research. To my surprise, this is not only not an idea that originated with Jacobs, but it is not a particularly radical or unorthodox opinion among those who have studied the very early history of cities. Evidence for the origin of either cities or agriculture is, unsurprisingly, very sparse. What there is of it, though, suggests that agriculture does not in fact predate urban settlements. They may have grown up together, or perhaps a settlement supported by hunting and gathering naturally developed agriculture and pastoralism as it grew, but there is apparently little evidence for the old tale (that I was taught in school, years after Jacobs' book was published) that agriculture came first.
So, what of it? What does that have to do with a modern economy? Jacobs' assertion is that this is how cities have worked ever since. In brief:
1) there is a thing which the city needs, and must import. Food, clothing, metals, bicycles, etc.
2) because there are more people in a city, it is able to use division of labor to repair or process that thing. Jacobs likes to use the example of bike repairmen in Tokyo, who eventually become numerous enough to specialize in repairing different parts (or making replacement parts). You could as easily point to agriculture, wherein the farmers no longer need to produce all of their tools, or even seed or animals, because there is an urban market nearby where they can purchase them.
3) eventually, it begins to produce that thing itself (what Jacobs calls "import substitution"); instead of importing clay pots, or iron tools, or complex machinery, there is enough of a market for the city to make its own. The Tokyo bicycle repairmen begin producing bicycles.
4) the skills and processes that it used to produce the thing, enable and encourage closely allied industries. Jacobs likes to use the example of Mrs Ida Rosenthal, a New York seamstress who invented brassieres, and eventually got so much business for them that she went on to specialize in their manufacture, leaving the dressmaking business to others.
Side note: it is well established that, contrary to popular myth, the bra was not invented by a man. But I digress.
There are, as a result of this analysis, ways to distinguish between different kinds of cities. One thing that she points out is that while there may be short-term advantages to specializing in a particular industry or even product, in the long run it makes it less and less likely that the city will do more of the "import substitution" (producing locally something which it once had to trade for) which ultimately drives innovation. If Japan left bicycle-making and repairing to others, it would have not built up the skills and infrastructure necessary to do all of the more complex (and profitable) machinery which it eventually became preeminent in. On the other hand, it suggests that Hollywood's specialization in movies and TV, or Detroit's specialization in automobiles, might have prevented them from diversifying into other fields. Detroit suffered the consequences, and Hollywood seems to be suffering them currently.
Silicon Valley, take note.
Jacobs doesn't spend much time on it, but this naturally also suggests one of the (many) reasons why government driven economic development is so often unsuccessful. Government plans naturally prefer to have a single, concentrated and specialized part of the economy in each city or region (the Soviet Union was infamous for this). An explosion of diverse enterprises, many of them aimed at import substitution or branching out into new products (almost always made in new businesses, by people who had learned their skills in an older ones), does not fit into anyone's grand plan (either Politburo or Economics Department). It also doesn't fit into a corporate quarterly report.
Economics as a field has not been very welcoming of Jacobs' analysis, but then the real world's empirical results have not been very kind to mainstream economics. I have not yet digested all that she had to say, and I expect I will need to reread this book at some point. What I can say is that, whether or not it is always correct I don't know, but it explains much that mainstream economics fails to. Nations (or cities) that follow the advice of the IMF have not, by and large, profited from doing so. Jacobs has no trouble explaining why that is.
In brief, she thought they worked via cities. No surprise there; she was always more interested in urban than suburban, small-town, or rural living (and was honest and clear about this). But Jacobs found that economics had made a similar mistake to that of city planners (who attempted to find ways for city-dwellers to pretend that they lived in the countryside), in that they tried to imagine cities as a sort of overgrown village, when in fact it was a different thing entirely. Because they did not understand what cities were, they did not understand what they were for. Therefore (because economic growth is nearly always accomplished via the growth of cities) they did not understand how economies worked.
The first thing Jacobs sets out to propose and explain, is that farms did not enable cities, but rather the reverse. On the face of it, this seems preposterous. However, as Jacobs points out, you could easily say (if you were unfamiliar with their history) that cities (as they are) could not exist without power plants to generate electricity (nearly everything in the city requires it). That might be taken to mean that therefore the power plants must have come first, and then their existence enabled cities. In fact, it was the growth of cities that (because they created enough demand in a concentrated area) enabled power plants to be made.
But, the original appearance of cities is not so well documented as the appearance of electricity, so it has been assumed that agriculture arose first, and from that came urban settlements. Jacobs proposes that it happened the other way, and an accumulation of people in one place is what made it both possible and desirable for hunter/gatherers to settle in one place, just outside an urban market, and produce food to trade to them for whatever early settlements were making.
This seemed so contrary to what I have previously understood that I stopped reading the book for a bit of independent research. To my surprise, this is not only not an idea that originated with Jacobs, but it is not a particularly radical or unorthodox opinion among those who have studied the very early history of cities. Evidence for the origin of either cities or agriculture is, unsurprisingly, very sparse. What there is of it, though, suggests that agriculture does not in fact predate urban settlements. They may have grown up together, or perhaps a settlement supported by hunting and gathering naturally developed agriculture and pastoralism as it grew, but there is apparently little evidence for the old tale (that I was taught in school, years after Jacobs' book was published) that agriculture came first.
So, what of it? What does that have to do with a modern economy? Jacobs' assertion is that this is how cities have worked ever since. In brief:
1) there is a thing which the city needs, and must import. Food, clothing, metals, bicycles, etc.
2) because there are more people in a city, it is able to use division of labor to repair or process that thing. Jacobs likes to use the example of bike repairmen in Tokyo, who eventually become numerous enough to specialize in repairing different parts (or making replacement parts). You could as easily point to agriculture, wherein the farmers no longer need to produce all of their tools, or even seed or animals, because there is an urban market nearby where they can purchase them.
3) eventually, it begins to produce that thing itself (what Jacobs calls "import substitution"); instead of importing clay pots, or iron tools, or complex machinery, there is enough of a market for the city to make its own. The Tokyo bicycle repairmen begin producing bicycles.
4) the skills and processes that it used to produce the thing, enable and encourage closely allied industries. Jacobs likes to use the example of Mrs Ida Rosenthal, a New York seamstress who invented brassieres, and eventually got so much business for them that she went on to specialize in their manufacture, leaving the dressmaking business to others.
Side note: it is well established that, contrary to popular myth, the bra was not invented by a man. But I digress.
There are, as a result of this analysis, ways to distinguish between different kinds of cities. One thing that she points out is that while there may be short-term advantages to specializing in a particular industry or even product, in the long run it makes it less and less likely that the city will do more of the "import substitution" (producing locally something which it once had to trade for) which ultimately drives innovation. If Japan left bicycle-making and repairing to others, it would have not built up the skills and infrastructure necessary to do all of the more complex (and profitable) machinery which it eventually became preeminent in. On the other hand, it suggests that Hollywood's specialization in movies and TV, or Detroit's specialization in automobiles, might have prevented them from diversifying into other fields. Detroit suffered the consequences, and Hollywood seems to be suffering them currently.
Silicon Valley, take note.
Jacobs doesn't spend much time on it, but this naturally also suggests one of the (many) reasons why government driven economic development is so often unsuccessful. Government plans naturally prefer to have a single, concentrated and specialized part of the economy in each city or region (the Soviet Union was infamous for this). An explosion of diverse enterprises, many of them aimed at import substitution or branching out into new products (almost always made in new businesses, by people who had learned their skills in an older ones), does not fit into anyone's grand plan (either Politburo or Economics Department). It also doesn't fit into a corporate quarterly report.
Economics as a field has not been very welcoming of Jacobs' analysis, but then the real world's empirical results have not been very kind to mainstream economics. I have not yet digested all that she had to say, and I expect I will need to reread this book at some point. What I can say is that, whether or not it is always correct I don't know, but it explains much that mainstream economics fails to. Nations (or cities) that follow the advice of the IMF have not, by and large, profited from doing so. Jacobs has no trouble explaining why that is.
December 19, 2012
In this book, Jane Jacobs brings her creative mind and sharp wit to bear on the question of how cities grow economically. While there's a lot of wisdom here, it demands an unusual style of reading. Jacobs was not a scientist or economist in a formal modern manner; rather, she had more in common intellectually with the natural philosophers of an earlier era. That is, rather than proposing a hypothesis and testing it against econometric analysis, Jacobs observes, keenly, and discerns a mechanism that explains what she sees. Early in the book, Jacobs offers an explanation of how the first cities came to initiate economic growth. It reads like a modern version of social contract theory: philosophically credible, but not really true in an historical sense.
Jacobs' writing is always stimulating, and she offered key insights into social order decades before they became widely appreciated. For example, the final chapter of Jacobs' better known Death and Life of Great American Cities discusses cities as iterative, nonlinear systems, decades before those became a hip topic of academic study in the 1990s. In The Economy of Cities, Jacobs correctly predicts the rise of services, and also nails the function of the Long Tail as a source of economic growth. But, she uses her own term, 'growth through product differentiation', which she identifies as the next major form of economic growth after an economy exhausts the possibilities of mass production.
The core point of the book is that cities develop new work first by manufacturing goods that displace imports, and later by budding new products (or services) off of current manufactures. Overarching efficiency in production spells the death of this process, triggering economic stagnation. Jacobs notes the importance of venture capital that is willing to take risks and bankroll new industries without trying to rationalize them or add them to existing calcified corporate structures. There's a lot more as well, including some assertions about poverty and population growth that have since been shown to be wrong.
As a thinker and writer, Jacobs is in a category of her own. I find reading her books takes real concentration, and sometimes several re-reads, despite the lucidity of her prose. Her combination of liberal values and deep distrust of government, so reflective of her struggles against Robert Moses and modernist planning, jars in the context of current political fights, in which liberals are generally trying to protect government from right-wing attacks. Nonetheless, Jacobs' grasp of patterns of order - spatial and economic - is so rich and so incisive that it justifies the effort to absorb it fully.
Jacobs' writing is always stimulating, and she offered key insights into social order decades before they became widely appreciated. For example, the final chapter of Jacobs' better known Death and Life of Great American Cities discusses cities as iterative, nonlinear systems, decades before those became a hip topic of academic study in the 1990s. In The Economy of Cities, Jacobs correctly predicts the rise of services, and also nails the function of the Long Tail as a source of economic growth. But, she uses her own term, 'growth through product differentiation', which she identifies as the next major form of economic growth after an economy exhausts the possibilities of mass production.
The core point of the book is that cities develop new work first by manufacturing goods that displace imports, and later by budding new products (or services) off of current manufactures. Overarching efficiency in production spells the death of this process, triggering economic stagnation. Jacobs notes the importance of venture capital that is willing to take risks and bankroll new industries without trying to rationalize them or add them to existing calcified corporate structures. There's a lot more as well, including some assertions about poverty and population growth that have since been shown to be wrong.
As a thinker and writer, Jacobs is in a category of her own. I find reading her books takes real concentration, and sometimes several re-reads, despite the lucidity of her prose. Her combination of liberal values and deep distrust of government, so reflective of her struggles against Robert Moses and modernist planning, jars in the context of current political fights, in which liberals are generally trying to protect government from right-wing attacks. Nonetheless, Jacobs' grasp of patterns of order - spatial and economic - is so rich and so incisive that it justifies the effort to absorb it fully.
March 6, 2024
An above-average analysis of the economies of cities, with a strong emphasis on the dialectical relationship between city and country, without Jacobs ever calling it dialectical of course.
Her analyses on the division of labour, imports and exports, and an accessible but short explanation of the laws of capitalist economics make this book above average in my view. She expertly understands what economic development means and what it looks like in practice, and it shows.
However, to any anti-capitalists and Marxists, this book must be taken with a huge grain of salt, having being written in the late 1960s, at the tail end of an usual period of capitalist expansion. Jacobs doesn’t believe in the interests of various classes of society, and explicitly states that the working class does not share any legitimate solidarity, since the working class can be divided into lower-skilled/industrial/colonial or white-collar/western/managerial positions, thus creating a “fiction of solidarity”. She also fails to take into consideration monopoly trusts, imperialism, and not really taking the time to distinguish genuine socialism vs the communism spouted by the degenerated workers’ states of her time.
Overall, it is a solid introduction, but there is much more to be said and explained that Jacobs did not have the knowledge, time, or evidence to back up. I think it would be very interesting to do a more contemporary analysis of the economies of cities, especially since the 2008 crash, as well as with the current housing crisis, and the strongly renewed neoliberal aspirations of attracting national and international capital investments.
Her analyses on the division of labour, imports and exports, and an accessible but short explanation of the laws of capitalist economics make this book above average in my view. She expertly understands what economic development means and what it looks like in practice, and it shows.
However, to any anti-capitalists and Marxists, this book must be taken with a huge grain of salt, having being written in the late 1960s, at the tail end of an usual period of capitalist expansion. Jacobs doesn’t believe in the interests of various classes of society, and explicitly states that the working class does not share any legitimate solidarity, since the working class can be divided into lower-skilled/industrial/colonial or white-collar/western/managerial positions, thus creating a “fiction of solidarity”. She also fails to take into consideration monopoly trusts, imperialism, and not really taking the time to distinguish genuine socialism vs the communism spouted by the degenerated workers’ states of her time.
Overall, it is a solid introduction, but there is much more to be said and explained that Jacobs did not have the knowledge, time, or evidence to back up. I think it would be very interesting to do a more contemporary analysis of the economies of cities, especially since the 2008 crash, as well as with the current housing crisis, and the strongly renewed neoliberal aspirations of attracting national and international capital investments.
October 2, 2024
An impressive deductive work from Jacobs, who, without any formal training in economics, derived many results that also popped up in Nobel-winning academic papers.
Read
February 11, 2021OK, Jane Jacobs, while she is a landmark American thinker is not an academic economist or anything of the sort. Of course, that doesn't preclude her from being able to write about economic subjects, but keep that in mind. I was intrigued by her examples, but I'd like to see some more empirical, data-driven arguments that go either for or against her thesis. Something tells me something is not quite right.
February 28, 2026
The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs (1916-2006), 1969, 268 pages, Library-of-Congress HT321.J32.206 Memorial Library
Jane Jacobs books:
https://search.library.wisc.edu/searc...
and
https://pin.linkcat.info/app/search/l...
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006), Michael Hudson (1939-), and Thomas Piketty (1971-) are economists who know what they're talking about.
Cities appear /before/ the rural development that later supplies them. p. 40.
Innovations--/even in agriculture/--happen first in cities.
A city seems always to have implied a group of cities, in trade with one another. p. 35.
"City"--A settlement that consistently generates its economic growth from its own local economy.
"Stagnant city"--A settlement that formerly grew as a city, but has stopped doing so. p. 262.
Men able to use their opportunity make a city. --Alcaeus, 600 BCE, Greece. p. 144.
Poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes. p. 121. [But see /Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope/, Beatriz Manz, 2004: Poverty is /because/ of wealth. 3% of landholdings--plantations for export--take 65% of the farmland. Leaving 90% of landholdings too small to subsist on. [p. 16]]
Jacobs recommends:
pp. 10-11: /The Great Hunger/, Cecil Woodham-Smith: Rural people alone can't fix a food crisis. Ireland had no ports nor transport to famine areas in the 1840s; no grain mills; no way to build mills; no bread ovens; no way to learn how to grow other crops, nor to distribute seeds, nor to supply tools. The Brits had subjugated the Irish /by quashing city industry/.
Ireland, before the potato famine, had 9,000,000 people. They were very poor. From starvation, disease, and emigration, they were swiftly reduced to 3,000,000. They were still poor. Their marriage and birth rates became the lowest in the world. Depopulation doesn't bring prosperity. p. 119. The economies of people are not like the economies of deer, who wax fat if their numbers are thinned. p. 120.
pp. 12, 134, 154-156, 177-179, 183-184: /Studies in Economic History/, George Unwin: City weaving practices diffused into the British countryside in the late 1500s, becoming cottage industries.
pp. 14-15, 136: /A History of French Civilization/, Duby and Mandrou: In the centuries after the fall of Rome, when cities withered, farm tools became unavailable: rural people were half-starved. Iron was reserved for weapons.
In the early 1700s, people began to rotate planting alfalfa and clover with planting food crops. The nitrogen from the forage crops and from the manure of cattle that ate the forage, exploded yields of food crops and animals, enabling the population boom that alarmed Malthus. Duby and Mandrou say that the fodders were grown in and around cities for at least a century before rural farmers adopted them.The last places to adopt crop rotation were those with least contact with cities. pp. 16-17.
pp. 131-132, 173-179: /Medieval Cities/, Henri Pirenne: Embryonic European cities of the 900s got their start supplying Venice. Venice in the 400s and 500s had got its start supplying salt to Constantinople.
pp. 18-40, 69, 127: /Çatal Hüyük/, James Mellaart: A city may have begun around 9,000 BCE as a trading center for volcanic obsidian, for sharp blades. p. 35. It would have attracted other trade goods in exchange: copper, live animals and dry seeds for food. Agriculture may have begun in the city as people grew seeds from various places and noticed crosses that yielded more p. 29; docile food animals were kept alive and became domesticated.
Çatal Hüyük existed 7000-6000 BCE. It is, as of 1969, the earliest city yet found, and the earliest known settlement of any kind to possess agriculture. p. 32. And the oldest cloth. p. 33. [Isaac Asimov, in his /Chronology of the World/, 1991, says that Jericho had 2,500 population in 7000 BCE. Jacobs tells of a Syrian settlement from 7000-6000 BCE of 1,000-3,000 people, but containing remains of only wild foods. p. 43. Permanent pre-agricultural settlements of 250,000 years ago have been found in Hungary and France. p. 42.]
Nomadic herding peoples were likely villagers cast adrift when the city they served was destroyed. p. 38.
pp. 79-80: /Histories/, Herodotus: Knowledge came not from gods nor heroes but from people--especially from foreigners who have different ways of doing things.
pp. 85-121, 126-127, 157: /Victorian [1837-1901] Cities/, Asa Briggs: A city that efficiently produces a great output, as Manchester produced cloth, is vulnerable to decline and decay as cities elsewhere learn to do the same. A city with lots of small businesses inefficiently tinkering with new ideas, as Birmingham, may survive and thrive. Since 1920, Detroit has resembled Manchester. p. 95. As has New York City. pp. 95-96.
Detroit shipyards were among the first in the world to build steamships. p. 120. Detroit's innovative development was sacrificed to the needs of its growth industry, automobiles: Detroit became a company town to the carmakers. pp. 124-126, 181, 231.
pp. 97-98, 102, 224: /Rochester: A Brief History/, Blake McKelvey: George Eastman made sure that Rochester, New York would spawn no development outside his Kodak company: he attacked former employees with lawsuits, who tried to go into business for themselves.
pp. 92-93, 130-131, 134-135, 186-187, 190-191, 230: /Prehistoric India/, Stuart Piggott: The twin capitals of the Indus Valley civilization, Harappā and Mohenjo-daro, produced vast numbers of bricks and clay cups. But by 2500 BCE they had ceased to learn anything new. They stagnated and declined.
/Rome/, Michael Rostovtzeff: City-dwellers now produce what they once imported. Now they turn to importing other things. The economy has expanded. pp. 31, 145-179, 198-202.
p. 106, 175-179: /Daily Life in Ancient Rome/, Jérôme Carcopino: Rome had aqueducts and sewers beginning 500 BCE, but few Roman houses were connected.
pp. 66, 187-188, 193-194: /Love and Hate in China/, Hans Konigsberger: a factory progresses from engine repair to manufacture.
p. 24: /Book of the Eskimos/, Peter Freuchen: Eskimos without knives take a long time to flense a walrus with sharp stones. If they have knives they can do it quickly, and have time to hunt more walruses.
p. 45: /Principles of Geology/, Lyell, 1800s. First to show that Earth is eons old.
ERRATA
Writes as if the man from Stratford--who apparently did not so much as own a book--wrote the Shakespeare plays. p. 163. For a study of the characteristics the author must've had, and the identity of one man who possessed them all, see J. Thomas Looney https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... and Mark Anderson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... . And others: https://pin.linkcat.info/app/search/&...
Also see Leo Tolstoy's critique of Shakespeare's works: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Jane Jacobs books:
https://search.library.wisc.edu/searc...
and
https://pin.linkcat.info/app/search/l...
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006), Michael Hudson (1939-), and Thomas Piketty (1971-) are economists who know what they're talking about.
Cities appear /before/ the rural development that later supplies them. p. 40.
Innovations--/even in agriculture/--happen first in cities.
A city seems always to have implied a group of cities, in trade with one another. p. 35.
"City"--A settlement that consistently generates its economic growth from its own local economy.
"Stagnant city"--A settlement that formerly grew as a city, but has stopped doing so. p. 262.
Men able to use their opportunity make a city. --Alcaeus, 600 BCE, Greece. p. 144.
Poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes. p. 121. [But see /Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror and Hope/, Beatriz Manz, 2004: Poverty is /because/ of wealth. 3% of landholdings--plantations for export--take 65% of the farmland. Leaving 90% of landholdings too small to subsist on. [p. 16]]
Jacobs recommends:
pp. 10-11: /The Great Hunger/, Cecil Woodham-Smith: Rural people alone can't fix a food crisis. Ireland had no ports nor transport to famine areas in the 1840s; no grain mills; no way to build mills; no bread ovens; no way to learn how to grow other crops, nor to distribute seeds, nor to supply tools. The Brits had subjugated the Irish /by quashing city industry/.
Ireland, before the potato famine, had 9,000,000 people. They were very poor. From starvation, disease, and emigration, they were swiftly reduced to 3,000,000. They were still poor. Their marriage and birth rates became the lowest in the world. Depopulation doesn't bring prosperity. p. 119. The economies of people are not like the economies of deer, who wax fat if their numbers are thinned. p. 120.
pp. 12, 134, 154-156, 177-179, 183-184: /Studies in Economic History/, George Unwin: City weaving practices diffused into the British countryside in the late 1500s, becoming cottage industries.
pp. 14-15, 136: /A History of French Civilization/, Duby and Mandrou: In the centuries after the fall of Rome, when cities withered, farm tools became unavailable: rural people were half-starved. Iron was reserved for weapons.
In the early 1700s, people began to rotate planting alfalfa and clover with planting food crops. The nitrogen from the forage crops and from the manure of cattle that ate the forage, exploded yields of food crops and animals, enabling the population boom that alarmed Malthus. Duby and Mandrou say that the fodders were grown in and around cities for at least a century before rural farmers adopted them.The last places to adopt crop rotation were those with least contact with cities. pp. 16-17.
pp. 131-132, 173-179: /Medieval Cities/, Henri Pirenne: Embryonic European cities of the 900s got their start supplying Venice. Venice in the 400s and 500s had got its start supplying salt to Constantinople.
pp. 18-40, 69, 127: /Çatal Hüyük/, James Mellaart: A city may have begun around 9,000 BCE as a trading center for volcanic obsidian, for sharp blades. p. 35. It would have attracted other trade goods in exchange: copper, live animals and dry seeds for food. Agriculture may have begun in the city as people grew seeds from various places and noticed crosses that yielded more p. 29; docile food animals were kept alive and became domesticated.
Çatal Hüyük existed 7000-6000 BCE. It is, as of 1969, the earliest city yet found, and the earliest known settlement of any kind to possess agriculture. p. 32. And the oldest cloth. p. 33. [Isaac Asimov, in his /Chronology of the World/, 1991, says that Jericho had 2,500 population in 7000 BCE. Jacobs tells of a Syrian settlement from 7000-6000 BCE of 1,000-3,000 people, but containing remains of only wild foods. p. 43. Permanent pre-agricultural settlements of 250,000 years ago have been found in Hungary and France. p. 42.]
Nomadic herding peoples were likely villagers cast adrift when the city they served was destroyed. p. 38.
pp. 79-80: /Histories/, Herodotus: Knowledge came not from gods nor heroes but from people--especially from foreigners who have different ways of doing things.
pp. 85-121, 126-127, 157: /Victorian [1837-1901] Cities/, Asa Briggs: A city that efficiently produces a great output, as Manchester produced cloth, is vulnerable to decline and decay as cities elsewhere learn to do the same. A city with lots of small businesses inefficiently tinkering with new ideas, as Birmingham, may survive and thrive. Since 1920, Detroit has resembled Manchester. p. 95. As has New York City. pp. 95-96.
Detroit shipyards were among the first in the world to build steamships. p. 120. Detroit's innovative development was sacrificed to the needs of its growth industry, automobiles: Detroit became a company town to the carmakers. pp. 124-126, 181, 231.
pp. 97-98, 102, 224: /Rochester: A Brief History/, Blake McKelvey: George Eastman made sure that Rochester, New York would spawn no development outside his Kodak company: he attacked former employees with lawsuits, who tried to go into business for themselves.
pp. 92-93, 130-131, 134-135, 186-187, 190-191, 230: /Prehistoric India/, Stuart Piggott: The twin capitals of the Indus Valley civilization, Harappā and Mohenjo-daro, produced vast numbers of bricks and clay cups. But by 2500 BCE they had ceased to learn anything new. They stagnated and declined.
/Rome/, Michael Rostovtzeff: City-dwellers now produce what they once imported. Now they turn to importing other things. The economy has expanded. pp. 31, 145-179, 198-202.
p. 106, 175-179: /Daily Life in Ancient Rome/, Jérôme Carcopino: Rome had aqueducts and sewers beginning 500 BCE, but few Roman houses were connected.
pp. 66, 187-188, 193-194: /Love and Hate in China/, Hans Konigsberger: a factory progresses from engine repair to manufacture.
p. 24: /Book of the Eskimos/, Peter Freuchen: Eskimos without knives take a long time to flense a walrus with sharp stones. If they have knives they can do it quickly, and have time to hunt more walruses.
p. 45: /Principles of Geology/, Lyell, 1800s. First to show that Earth is eons old.
ERRATA
Writes as if the man from Stratford--who apparently did not so much as own a book--wrote the Shakespeare plays. p. 163. For a study of the characteristics the author must've had, and the identity of one man who possessed them all, see J. Thomas Looney https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9... and Mark Anderson https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... . And others: https://pin.linkcat.info/app/search/&...
Also see Leo Tolstoy's critique of Shakespeare's works: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 25, 2013
Jane Jacobs has established herself as an accidental expert on urban theory. Her "Death and Life of Great American Cities," meant to be a defense of her Greenwich Village neighborhood from the designs of Robert Moses, over time revealed itself to be an anatomy book for the city as a being.
Jacobs takes her pedestrian but profound musings to describing the workings of a city's economy. She approaches economics twice, in "Cities and the Wealth of Nations" and this, her earlier book, "The Economy of Cities."
The book opens with a takedown of the anthropological theory that cities are a progression from an agricultural society that became industrious and wealthy. Jacobs says that is nonsense.
Rural development actually develops from cities, Jacobs theories -- the process is backwards.
Cities don't often sprout directly atop fertile agricultural land. Typically, they form off to the sides of these places -- and for much of human history, those places were usually waterways.
Cities serve as depots to send and receive goods, as well as trading posts to form local markets for goods. The markets enable a division of labor that allows for more goods to be produced and processes to be created. These goods and processes then are sent to rural areas, in trade for raw materials to be processed and shipped elsewhere.
This explanation serves as the springboard for her theory of city economics. She calls the term "import replacement." Jacobs says an early city serves as a repository for goods and processes, and the first step is for workers to start figuring out the goods and processes and learn to produce them or find purposes for them. In economics and business, this is the term known as value addition.
Jacobs cites Japan as an example of import replacement, saying the country became an industrial powerhouse starting from the small base of bicycle production. Early on, Japan would import bicycles for sale. Over time, workers learned how to fashion replacement parts for the bicycles from locally available goods. From then on, workers added to skill sets to build complete bicycles on their own to satisfy local consumption, then export domestically made bikes to other markets. Bicycles would need to be imported less, but that opens up a spot for other goods and processes to be imported. The process repeats.
Jacobs even has her own equations and flow charts in an appendix. Keep in mind, she is not an academic, but it is a foundation for economists and others to test.
She also dwells upon how the process can slow, stop, and put cities in decline. Amazingly, her theory of decline was probably little better than a guess, but she foresaw deindustrialization in 1969 when far more credentialed politicians, business leaders and economic leaders were -- and still are -- baffled by the collapse of industry. They thought prosperity was a given and that a factory was a hallmark of how far industry has come.
Jacobs, on the other hand, says a large factory marks the twilight of an economic phase and it saps, rather than enhances, the import replacement process. Jacobs in 1969 rightly called the secular decline of industrial cities like Detroit and Rochester. She holds up two British cities, industrial Manchester and diversified Birmingham, to show what has happened. Manchester's enormous factories were powerful magnets and generators of jobs, supplies and capital. Then, other factories opened elsewhere and Manchester's became outmoded, expensive and noncompetitive. Meanwhile, sleepy Birmingham never had a dominant industry, but instead a small patchwork of diverse producers. Birmingham kept on thriving (at least in 1969 -- as of 2013, Great Britain is wholly dependent on London as a dynamic city region.)
Jacobs speaks to a general audience, and her theories are cursory and meant to be accessible to a lay reader. Though over time, Jacobs' sandbox musings have been incorporated in the academic world, and even economics. If you want to know a vital economic function, pick up "The Economy of Cities." The follow-up, "Cities and the Wealth of Nations," published 15 years after this volume, gives another microscopic look at the building blocks of the city economic process.
Jacobs takes her pedestrian but profound musings to describing the workings of a city's economy. She approaches economics twice, in "Cities and the Wealth of Nations" and this, her earlier book, "The Economy of Cities."
The book opens with a takedown of the anthropological theory that cities are a progression from an agricultural society that became industrious and wealthy. Jacobs says that is nonsense.
Rural development actually develops from cities, Jacobs theories -- the process is backwards.
Cities don't often sprout directly atop fertile agricultural land. Typically, they form off to the sides of these places -- and for much of human history, those places were usually waterways.
Cities serve as depots to send and receive goods, as well as trading posts to form local markets for goods. The markets enable a division of labor that allows for more goods to be produced and processes to be created. These goods and processes then are sent to rural areas, in trade for raw materials to be processed and shipped elsewhere.
This explanation serves as the springboard for her theory of city economics. She calls the term "import replacement." Jacobs says an early city serves as a repository for goods and processes, and the first step is for workers to start figuring out the goods and processes and learn to produce them or find purposes for them. In economics and business, this is the term known as value addition.
Jacobs cites Japan as an example of import replacement, saying the country became an industrial powerhouse starting from the small base of bicycle production. Early on, Japan would import bicycles for sale. Over time, workers learned how to fashion replacement parts for the bicycles from locally available goods. From then on, workers added to skill sets to build complete bicycles on their own to satisfy local consumption, then export domestically made bikes to other markets. Bicycles would need to be imported less, but that opens up a spot for other goods and processes to be imported. The process repeats.
Jacobs even has her own equations and flow charts in an appendix. Keep in mind, she is not an academic, but it is a foundation for economists and others to test.
She also dwells upon how the process can slow, stop, and put cities in decline. Amazingly, her theory of decline was probably little better than a guess, but she foresaw deindustrialization in 1969 when far more credentialed politicians, business leaders and economic leaders were -- and still are -- baffled by the collapse of industry. They thought prosperity was a given and that a factory was a hallmark of how far industry has come.
Jacobs, on the other hand, says a large factory marks the twilight of an economic phase and it saps, rather than enhances, the import replacement process. Jacobs in 1969 rightly called the secular decline of industrial cities like Detroit and Rochester. She holds up two British cities, industrial Manchester and diversified Birmingham, to show what has happened. Manchester's enormous factories were powerful magnets and generators of jobs, supplies and capital. Then, other factories opened elsewhere and Manchester's became outmoded, expensive and noncompetitive. Meanwhile, sleepy Birmingham never had a dominant industry, but instead a small patchwork of diverse producers. Birmingham kept on thriving (at least in 1969 -- as of 2013, Great Britain is wholly dependent on London as a dynamic city region.)
Jacobs speaks to a general audience, and her theories are cursory and meant to be accessible to a lay reader. Though over time, Jacobs' sandbox musings have been incorporated in the academic world, and even economics. If you want to know a vital economic function, pick up "The Economy of Cities." The follow-up, "Cities and the Wealth of Nations," published 15 years after this volume, gives another microscopic look at the building blocks of the city economic process.
January 22, 2008
Jacobs begins this book countering the claims of accepted anthropology/archeology theory that cities are built on a rural economic base. Jacobs instead suggests that much of what is considered "rural work", and what rural economies have to offer, is in fact exported from cities to the hinterland. This is no small claim since practically everyone disagrees with her. She illustrates her thesis well with specific examples throughout history ranging from the ancient Turkish city Catal Huyuk to the innovation of the brassiere by Ida Rosenthal in the 1920s to the Post-WWII Japanese economy. What all of these examples have in common is how new work begins, and Jacobs' claim is that new work thrives in city economies. This is because cities are inefficient, and this inefficiency allows for innovation--effecient economies (such as those of company towns) are inherently prone to economic stagnation because they are not import replacing.
The book is interesting because it parts ways with so much "conventional" thought that is still so accepted in universities. And also because I think Jacobs is right. With the U.S. economy currently being in the dumps it is easy to see why after reading this book--American institutions, particularly the American government, has destroyed cities in the post WWII economy (e.g., Johnson's "Great Society" legislation). Instead of encouraging short term inefficiency (trial and error through loans to small business) to achieve long term prosperity, the government has instead practiced protectionism of big industries (steel, auto) through subsidies, therefore stifling innovation and stagnating the economy (if proof is needed look at the current economic mess that is Michigan). Had the government provided more small business grants and loans, instead of big business subsidies, the U.S. would be far more powerful, because of innovation, in world-wide markets.
Jacobs is prophetic in the ending chapter suggesting the idea of differentiated production (production that is somewhere between mass production and craft manufacturing) as the way of the future. It has in fact proven to be in many sectors including the garment, music, and service industries. I could write more, but I spare you.
Favorite quote of this book: "To seek "causes" of poverty in this way is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes." p. 121
The book is interesting because it parts ways with so much "conventional" thought that is still so accepted in universities. And also because I think Jacobs is right. With the U.S. economy currently being in the dumps it is easy to see why after reading this book--American institutions, particularly the American government, has destroyed cities in the post WWII economy (e.g., Johnson's "Great Society" legislation). Instead of encouraging short term inefficiency (trial and error through loans to small business) to achieve long term prosperity, the government has instead practiced protectionism of big industries (steel, auto) through subsidies, therefore stifling innovation and stagnating the economy (if proof is needed look at the current economic mess that is Michigan). Had the government provided more small business grants and loans, instead of big business subsidies, the U.S. would be far more powerful, because of innovation, in world-wide markets.
Jacobs is prophetic in the ending chapter suggesting the idea of differentiated production (production that is somewhere between mass production and craft manufacturing) as the way of the future. It has in fact proven to be in many sectors including the garment, music, and service industries. I could write more, but I spare you.
Favorite quote of this book: "To seek "causes" of poverty in this way is to enter an intellectual dead end because poverty has no causes. Only prosperity has causes." p. 121
February 12, 2015
Another great read from Jane Jacobs. Jacobs continues developing her unique views on human nature and society, exploring concepts like spontaneous order, the centrality of trade (be it ideas, goods, ect.) to human life, and how our natural habitat - the city - works. As in "The Death and Life of the Great American Cities," she takes what may seem like a dry subject (in this case, urban economics) and makes it downright engrossing. With insights on subjects ranging from class conflict to early urban development to social welfare policy, anyone interested in human society would be remiss to pass up "The Economy of Cities."
April 9, 2012
illuminating at points and clearly written but also kind of unimaginative and conservative. plus as a city person I feel dirty for liking a book that is 80% "sorry guys but the country as we know it is an economic and cultural backwater that exists to support the real centre of human life, the city, and I can prove it"; she makes a convincing case, but I also feel like it panders to my biases and I should go read something about the decadence of the cities for a real intellectual challenge.
December 7, 2023
Unsurprisingly, given when it was written, this book is a bit outdated, but it was very interesting as apparently the origin of some of the ideas on urban agglomeration economies that I've read more modern versions of in my academic and professional work. I was surprised, but maybe shouldn't have been, that her focus was more on import-export dynamics at a city level than on the small-scale details of agglomeration from density, but it makes sense that that would likely have been easier to observe from her vantage point.
October 3, 2009
"The Economy of Cities" is a short and compelling investigation into two questions: what makes cities form, and why do some cities grow while others stagnate and shrink?
To the first question, Jane Jacobs argues that cities formed directly out of hunting and gathering societies, and then added agriculture to their economic activities. This overturns the "agricultural primacy" theory that is normally taught in schools: that small bands of hunters and gathers gradually settle down in agricultural settlements, which then expand to villages, and onwards to cities. I had never given this question much thought before, but by the end of the first chapter, Jacobs completely converted me to her point of view.
The second part of the book is longer and less interesting, but still worth a read if you're interested in urban studies. Jacobs argues that vibrant cities develop by adding new kinds of work to their existing economies, then develop these new kinds of work into export businesses serving other cities, and use the imports gained from this export work to develop still more kinds of businesses, in a repeating cycle. As readers of "Death and Life of Great American Cities" would expect, she's a strong proponent of the role of small businesses in creating new lines of work, and generally finds that large businesses lead to stagnant company towns (like Detroit.) Prescriptively, she's in favor of venture capital and government support for small business development, and cutting support to large but moribund old-line industries. Along the same lines, she favors measures that encourage the development of small business in ghettos and disadvantaged countries, and is generally against welfare programs that breed economic dependence.
One argument for the importance of this book: many of the ideas presented here have become widely accepted and implemented in urban development efforts in the U.S.— although sometimes not with the energy and vigor that Jacobs would have liked.
To the first question, Jane Jacobs argues that cities formed directly out of hunting and gathering societies, and then added agriculture to their economic activities. This overturns the "agricultural primacy" theory that is normally taught in schools: that small bands of hunters and gathers gradually settle down in agricultural settlements, which then expand to villages, and onwards to cities. I had never given this question much thought before, but by the end of the first chapter, Jacobs completely converted me to her point of view.
The second part of the book is longer and less interesting, but still worth a read if you're interested in urban studies. Jacobs argues that vibrant cities develop by adding new kinds of work to their existing economies, then develop these new kinds of work into export businesses serving other cities, and use the imports gained from this export work to develop still more kinds of businesses, in a repeating cycle. As readers of "Death and Life of Great American Cities" would expect, she's a strong proponent of the role of small businesses in creating new lines of work, and generally finds that large businesses lead to stagnant company towns (like Detroit.) Prescriptively, she's in favor of venture capital and government support for small business development, and cutting support to large but moribund old-line industries. Along the same lines, she favors measures that encourage the development of small business in ghettos and disadvantaged countries, and is generally against welfare programs that breed economic dependence.
One argument for the importance of this book: many of the ideas presented here have become widely accepted and implemented in urban development efforts in the U.S.— although sometimes not with the energy and vigor that Jacobs would have liked.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 7, 2022
“Conformity and monotony, even when they are embellished with a froth of novelty, are not attributes of developing and economically vigorous cities. They are attributes of stagnant settlements.”
I have so much love for Jane Jacobs. You cannot take an urban studies course without hearing her name. She is pretty iconic in the urban theory/politics space.
I promised myself I’d read the entirety of this book (I’ve read snippets of her work over the years). It was a dense-read and a bit-dry at times. However, it was a rewarding experience!
Quotes:
“Always, additions of new work lie behind the eliminations of old.”
“The greater the sheer numbers and varieties of divisions of labor already achieved in an economy, the greater the economy’s inherent capacity for adding still more kinds of goods and services. Also the possibilities increase for combining the existing divisions of labor in new ways.”
“To be sure, all the conditions that promote efficiency within city economies are not in conflict with conditions that promote development of the economy.”
“To limit the sizes of great cities as is often advocated, because of the acute problems arising from size, is profoundly reactionary. Cities magnify an economy’s practical problems, but they can also solve them by means of new technology.”
“Many evils conventionally blamed upon progress are, rather, evils of stagnation.”
I have so much love for Jane Jacobs. You cannot take an urban studies course without hearing her name. She is pretty iconic in the urban theory/politics space.
I promised myself I’d read the entirety of this book (I’ve read snippets of her work over the years). It was a dense-read and a bit-dry at times. However, it was a rewarding experience!
Quotes:
“Always, additions of new work lie behind the eliminations of old.”
“The greater the sheer numbers and varieties of divisions of labor already achieved in an economy, the greater the economy’s inherent capacity for adding still more kinds of goods and services. Also the possibilities increase for combining the existing divisions of labor in new ways.”
“To be sure, all the conditions that promote efficiency within city economies are not in conflict with conditions that promote development of the economy.”
“To limit the sizes of great cities as is often advocated, because of the acute problems arising from size, is profoundly reactionary. Cities magnify an economy’s practical problems, but they can also solve them by means of new technology.”
“Many evils conventionally blamed upon progress are, rather, evils of stagnation.”
Want to Read
August 6, 2016From Richard Florida, Author of "The Rise of the Creative Class"
http://www.fastcompany.com/1742367/ri...
"I have so many favorite books, but there are three people that really influenced me. The first and most important is Jane Jacobs and her book The Economy of Cities, which I think everyone who works in business has to read. What the farm and agricultural land was for our first great American economy, what the industrial company was to the great Industrial age, what the Great American corporation was to our economy, the city is now the social and economic organizing unit of our time. If you want to understand how to be successful as a business, you have to understand not only your company, but your city that you live in."
http://www.fastcompany.com/1742367/ri...
"I have so many favorite books, but there are three people that really influenced me. The first and most important is Jane Jacobs and her book The Economy of Cities, which I think everyone who works in business has to read. What the farm and agricultural land was for our first great American economy, what the industrial company was to the great Industrial age, what the Great American corporation was to our economy, the city is now the social and economic organizing unit of our time. If you want to understand how to be successful as a business, you have to understand not only your company, but your city that you live in."
January 4, 2011
A good read, with an interesting and persuasive argument, but tended to get too bogged down in case studies showing the same thing over and over again in a different way. The thesis was defended well enough half-way in and the rest of the book was just more of the same I felt.
Good arguments, not excellently written.
Good arguments, not excellently written.
February 2, 2013
This book gets much less ink spilled over it than DEATH AND LIFE (which is, of course, great), but I found ECONOMY to be simply jaw dropping. The book just can't be beat. If you care about cities, you need to read this slender little volume. It's full of stunning facts, stories and insights.
Read
April 16, 2012Although this book has some really great information, it was much too wordy. It could have been 150 pages and still provided the same information.
October 11, 2015
The writing style is quite repetitive, but the book contains some very good theories of urban growth.
September 29, 2016
I had to read this book for an urban studies class in college, and just picked it up recently for a specific reason. I liked it more 41 years ago! Very dense.
June 2, 2025
Must read: chapter 4 & 8.
Very stylish theory-writing sample.
I have to say this is a cool book of ideas!
Chapter 1: Simply from the perspective that "cities originated from rural areas," Jacobs claims that her logic led to this conclusion, which she herself does not believe. However, for me, her logic might be flawed. I also find her argument logically unacceptable. The reason is that, first and foremost, she fails to define the distinction between rural areas and cities. Her approach is to apply the modern urban-rural dichotomy to prehistoric times, a typical case of using present outcomes to argue prehistoric causes. The correct approach would be to identify a historical juncture where the separation between urban and rural areas emerged and then examine whether there were instances of urban industries entering rural areas. Even a single such example would, in my view, validate her argument. But so far, this obsidian example is purely her own fabrication—how can that hold up?
I believe the value of this article lies in:
1. Illustrating that "innovation" stems from the concentration of resources (schools, laboratories), whether in rural or urban areas.
2. Serving as a sample of critical writing.
Very stylish theory-writing sample.
I have to say this is a cool book of ideas!
Chapter 1: Simply from the perspective that "cities originated from rural areas," Jacobs claims that her logic led to this conclusion, which she herself does not believe. However, for me, her logic might be flawed. I also find her argument logically unacceptable. The reason is that, first and foremost, she fails to define the distinction between rural areas and cities. Her approach is to apply the modern urban-rural dichotomy to prehistoric times, a typical case of using present outcomes to argue prehistoric causes. The correct approach would be to identify a historical juncture where the separation between urban and rural areas emerged and then examine whether there were instances of urban industries entering rural areas. Even a single such example would, in my view, validate her argument. But so far, this obsidian example is purely her own fabrication—how can that hold up?
I believe the value of this article lies in:
1. Illustrating that "innovation" stems from the concentration of resources (schools, laboratories), whether in rural or urban areas.
2. Serving as a sample of critical writing.
April 10, 2018
Jane Jacobs is a badass.
May 28, 2021
Remarkable insights, so much still relevant to this day and it was written over 50 years ago!
January 25, 2025
Very well written of course but I think probably wrong? Also she badmouths Henry George
March 12, 2025
An enlightening read that covers one of our most pressing and least regarded problems.
October 11, 2014
Human progress and the growth of economy is driven by cities. Even agriculture is first born in cities and then transferred to rural areas.
The growth of cities themselves are driven by innovations. Jane Jacobs used a fantastic formula to describe this process: D+A+nET-->nD. Where D represents divisions of labors, A means additional activities, nET is many errors and trials to innovate, and finally, nD means more divisions of labors and more work. The innovations add new work to old work, and make the economy of cities increase.
A city is not an isolated entity, it is connected to other cities, even in pre-agriculture time. The connections are established through exports and imports of products and services. These two types of connections can bring two multiplier effects to trigger urban economy growth:
1. Export-Generating multiplier:
New products and services generated by innovations can increase exports, in exchange for more imports, which enhance internal productions and consumptions to generate even more products and services.
2. Import-Replacing multiplier:
Triggered by the first multiplier, the imports of a city increase. When a considerable amount of diverse inputs are available, a city can start replace imports by innovative ways of producing them locally. Suppose the amount of exports does not change, the replacements allow the city to import less original products and services, and replace them with more diversified new imports. The new imports as new As added into the above formula, can stimulate even more divisions and innovations. More innovations can increase exports and trigger the first multiplier again.
These two multiplier working together, can keep the explosive growth of urban economy.
Innovations involve nET (lots of errors and trials), which require lots of available capital to support them. However, these capital tend to be controlled by well-established economic activities, rather than those new emerging activities. The release of those trapped capitals is very critical for a city to utilize the two multipliers for economic growth.
-----------------------------
On Growth and Decline of Cities -- Implications from Import-Replacing Process
On one hand, the import-replacing process is enhancing a city's economy; one the other hand, it also undermines other cities' economy by reducing their exports. Therefore, when while other cities are replace one's exports, but it is not innovating enough, then it will stagnate and become obsolete.
The growth of cities themselves are driven by innovations. Jane Jacobs used a fantastic formula to describe this process: D+A+nET-->nD. Where D represents divisions of labors, A means additional activities, nET is many errors and trials to innovate, and finally, nD means more divisions of labors and more work. The innovations add new work to old work, and make the economy of cities increase.
A city is not an isolated entity, it is connected to other cities, even in pre-agriculture time. The connections are established through exports and imports of products and services. These two types of connections can bring two multiplier effects to trigger urban economy growth:
1. Export-Generating multiplier:
New products and services generated by innovations can increase exports, in exchange for more imports, which enhance internal productions and consumptions to generate even more products and services.
2. Import-Replacing multiplier:
Triggered by the first multiplier, the imports of a city increase. When a considerable amount of diverse inputs are available, a city can start replace imports by innovative ways of producing them locally. Suppose the amount of exports does not change, the replacements allow the city to import less original products and services, and replace them with more diversified new imports. The new imports as new As added into the above formula, can stimulate even more divisions and innovations. More innovations can increase exports and trigger the first multiplier again.
These two multiplier working together, can keep the explosive growth of urban economy.
Innovations involve nET (lots of errors and trials), which require lots of available capital to support them. However, these capital tend to be controlled by well-established economic activities, rather than those new emerging activities. The release of those trapped capitals is very critical for a city to utilize the two multipliers for economic growth.
-----------------------------
On Growth and Decline of Cities -- Implications from Import-Replacing Process
On one hand, the import-replacing process is enhancing a city's economy; one the other hand, it also undermines other cities' economy by reducing their exports. Therefore, when while other cities are replace one's exports, but it is not innovating enough, then it will stagnate and become obsolete.
February 12, 2016
i suppose the ideas that were once revolutionary are now normalised. Dry, did not finish.
Inefficiencies are needed for cities to grow. Growth- when new work is added to old work + output produced per year. Inefficiencies means that there is trial and error going on to produce new work.
Separate efficiency of operations and efficiency of developmental work(DW). A large amount of effort put into developmental work, but low results. This does not mean DW is inefficient but because DW is a trial and error task.
To starve off stagnation, a city needs to put work in long term growth and developmental work.
There is no cause for poverty. Only prosperity has caused. Analogically, heat is a result of an active process. But cold is not the result of any process; it is only the absence of heat.
Not overpopulation. It is ridiculous to suggest that because there is a finite out f natural resources that we all must share. The economies of people are unlike the economies of deer, who wax fat if their numbers are thinned. Cite examples of Colombia, the Congo and Brazil VS Japan and Western Europe (though this was in 1960). Birth control is a great source of social and economic liberation of women. More human capita. But it is not a solution for poverty
Driving income from waste produced. One day the proportion of unused waste will become smaller and the income from sales smaller, people will compete for rights to collect waste. (e.g. the recycling of aluminum)
- waste held in water, cannot collect? keep waste out of the water, duh. We hold waste in the water because it is currently the most economical method.
- human excrement --> flushing is primitive. difficult to keep contaminated water from clean. chemical toilets?
Inefficiencies are needed for cities to grow. Growth- when new work is added to old work + output produced per year. Inefficiencies means that there is trial and error going on to produce new work.
Separate efficiency of operations and efficiency of developmental work(DW). A large amount of effort put into developmental work, but low results. This does not mean DW is inefficient but because DW is a trial and error task.
To starve off stagnation, a city needs to put work in long term growth and developmental work.
There is no cause for poverty. Only prosperity has caused. Analogically, heat is a result of an active process. But cold is not the result of any process; it is only the absence of heat.
Not overpopulation. It is ridiculous to suggest that because there is a finite out f natural resources that we all must share. The economies of people are unlike the economies of deer, who wax fat if their numbers are thinned. Cite examples of Colombia, the Congo and Brazil VS Japan and Western Europe (though this was in 1960). Birth control is a great source of social and economic liberation of women. More human capita. But it is not a solution for poverty
Driving income from waste produced. One day the proportion of unused waste will become smaller and the income from sales smaller, people will compete for rights to collect waste. (e.g. the recycling of aluminum)
- waste held in water, cannot collect? keep waste out of the water, duh. We hold waste in the water because it is currently the most economical method.
- human excrement --> flushing is primitive. difficult to keep contaminated water from clean. chemical toilets?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2015
This is the first book I have read by Jane Jacobs, and it will not be the last. I have know of her work since studying architecture in college, particularly The Death and Life of Great American Cities, but never sat down to read anything. As this one was available at my local library branch, it seemed like a good a place as any to start. Despite the density of the topics covered I found her prose to be quite accessible, and the theories she expounded upon interesting and logical.
Jacobs examines, through historical accounts, present-day observations, and surmised theory, how cities begin, grow in population, and expand economically. She convincingly cites cities that brilliantly grew only to fall to its' own success, as well as cities that maintained a more economically viable foundation upon which to grow and prosper through changing times.
It was not only an enlightening account of the interconnectedness of cities and economies, offering the reader an understanding of how we have arrived at a time of a struggling Detroit and flourishing NYC, but an interesting and valuable exercise in systems thinking, particularly as it applies to our modern urban-economic landscape.
Jacobs examines, through historical accounts, present-day observations, and surmised theory, how cities begin, grow in population, and expand economically. She convincingly cites cities that brilliantly grew only to fall to its' own success, as well as cities that maintained a more economically viable foundation upon which to grow and prosper through changing times.
It was not only an enlightening account of the interconnectedness of cities and economies, offering the reader an understanding of how we have arrived at a time of a struggling Detroit and flourishing NYC, but an interesting and valuable exercise in systems thinking, particularly as it applies to our modern urban-economic landscape.
July 6, 2023
Outlines how economic development originates in cities, not in rural agriculture as previously assumed, in 5 steps. 1. The city establishes itself supplying an expanding market in an older city 2. Local businesses set up to support exports begin exporting their own work 3. Imports are replaced by local workers causing a growth explosion as the economy diversifies and create new work that was neither imported nor exported prior to growth 4. New work becomes new exports and the composition of imports changes 5. The city repeats the process in a virtuous cycle. Interesting ideas in this book: agriculture started in cities as city merchants traded exports for non perishable food like animals and seeds which eventually became crops and domestic animals, the central economic conflict is not labour v. capital but old work v. new work, the economy will shift to services as manufacturing diversifies and manufacturing firms become smaller, trial and error is inefficient but necessary for development which is why company towns r never a good model for long.
July 29, 2011
Jacobs makes a convincing case for the urban ecosystems that incubate intensive economic growth. She rightly moves the economic discussion from extensive growth (e.g., divisions of labor in pin making from Adam Smith) to intensive growth (the development of this new product called a "pin" from the existing industry of making the spines in wool carders). Perhaps the book's major fault is that it lacks insightful policy prescriptions like those found in "The Death and Life of Great American Cities." A number of prescriptions might have included: Tax codes that increase the costs of large stagnant companies purchasing small productive companies, employment law that makes it difficult for employers to sue their former employees for starting competing businesses, universal health care to reduce the risks of starting small companies, urban business incubator spaces, etc. Perhaps she covers these points in her next couple of books.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews