Triumph of the City

Each month, around five million more people live in metropolitan areas. Consequently, more than half the world’s population today is urban. Yet, many of us criticize cities for being expensive, dangerous and environmentally unfriendly. Triumph of the City rekindles our faith in the city. Edward Glaeser, sweeping aside misconceptions and familiar theories, introduces us to surprising insights on how cities thrive, die and reinvent themselves.
This remarkable book not only observes what makes cities the greatest human invention but also reveals the eye-opening factors which shape the success of present cities from winter temperatures to misinformed environmentalism.
The big question today is whether India and China will imitate the American way of life that is living in car-based suburbs and gated communities or choose denser urban settings built around the elevator that are more environmentally friendly.
“We must discard the view that environmentalism means living around trees and that urbanites should always fight to preserve a city’s physical past. We must stop idolizing home ownership, which favors suburban tract homes over high-rise apartments, and stop romanticizing rural villages… Above all, we must free ourselves from our tendency to see cities as their buildings, and remember that the real city is made of flesh, not concrete” writes Glaeser.
The author, however, is honest enough to admit that as long as America and the West lead the developed world in per capita carbon emissions, it will be impossible to convince China and India as well as the rest of the developing world not to emulate their energy-intensive lifestyles.
Thriving cities in Europe and America attract smart people and act as a haven of innovation and creativity. The same can be said for the developing world. Bangalore, India’s fifth-largest city, close to some of the country’s top engineering schools, is a hub of engineering excellence and home to Infosys since 1983.
Singapore changed from a poor shantytown in the 1960s into a model city with one of the highest per capita gross domestic products on earth thanks to its smart human capital and a remarkably competent public sector. The island’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, realized that the Lion City could keep its green space only by building up. Furthermore, the traffic in Singapore is fluid thanks to toll-collecting arches which charge cars and for longer distances, trains are safe and fast.
While some cities decline and attract poor people with cheap housing, poverty, according to the author, can be a sign of a city’s success. We should be worrying about places with too little poverty and why they fail to attract the less fortunate.
Rio de Janeiro, for example, has plenty of poor people because it’s a good place to be poor. Rio’s shantytowns, favelas, situated high on the hills surrounding the city, offer some of the world’s best view. And you do not need to be rich to enjoy Ipanema Beach!
“The favelas of Rio, the slums of Mumbay, and the ghettos of Chicago have long provided pathways out of destitution for the poor… The part of the world that is rural and poor moves glacially, only occasionally shocked by famine or civil war, or very rarely, something as helpful as the Green Revolution, while the part of the world that is urban and poor is changing rapidly. There is opportunity in change,” says Glaeser.
Some cities like Boston and Milan reinvented themselves successfully. Boston’s postindustrial success is based on engineering, computers, financial services, management consulting, and biotechnology. Per capita productivity rises sharply with metropolitan area size when a city is well educated and “education policy is a vital ingredient in urban success”.
Milan has also renewed with success thanks to education and its smart and creative human capital. Three quarters of its workers are in services, finance and the city is also a gateway of fashion.
And Vancouver is reputed for being one of the world’s most pleasant cities, thanks to its unique urban planning philosophy, known as Vancouverism. The latter is characterized by open spaces, tall slender skyscrapers that offer wide views, and adequate public transportation.
As for Dubai, the secret of its success lies not only in its economic institutions better than its neighbors but also in its good legal institutions and excellent infrastructure which make it an easier place to do business than overregulated India. Dubai has become a natural commercial hub for the whole region.
Four years ago, Dubai was one of the largest construction sites on earth. The Burj Al Arab standing at 1,027 feet, was the tallest hotel in the world when it opened and the Dubai Mall with its 5.9 million square feet of internal space, 12 million in all, is currently one of the largest malls in the world. However the market seems to have opposed this construction strategy and Dubai defaulted on its loans in 2009.
“Cities like Dubai must move beyond a purely economic model of success by embracing quality of life. Cities must build to succeed. But that doesn’t mean that any place can become New York or Shanghai. City builders must be visionaries, but also realists”.
In this pioneering book, Edward Glaeser argues that cities are actually the greenest and best places to live: “…whether in London’s ornate arcades or Rio’s fractious favelas, whether in the high-rises of Hong Kong or the dusty workspaces of Dharavi, our culture, our prosperity and our freedom are all ultimately gifts of people living together, the ultimate triumph of the city”.