Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier

Lately a few planners, notably Reginald Isaacs of Harvard, have daringly begun to question whether the conception of neighborhood in big cities has any meaning at all. Isaacs points out that city people are mobile. They can and do pick and choose from the entire city (and beyond) for everything from a job, a dentist, recreation, or friends, to shop

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The future of humanity and the long-term sustainability of the planet are inextricably linked to the fate of our cities. Cities are the crucible of civilization, the hubs of innovation, the engines of wealth creation and centers of power, the magnets that attract creative individuals, and the stimulant for ideas, growth, and innovation. But they al

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Since the year 2007, more than half of humanity has lived in cities (more than 80 percent in all affluent countries), and unlike in the industrializing cities of the 19th and early 20th centuries, jobs in modern urban areas are largely in services. Most modern urbanites are thus disconnected not only from the ways we produce our food but also from

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As the U.S. became more urban, it also became less equitable in terms of income distribution. And the distribution of income in cities like New York is even more unequal than the average for the whole country. The distance between the top and the bottom increased, and it became more difficult to move beyond one's existing class. Absolute economic m... See more

Too many have bought into a perverse inversion of what the city should be. Cities are where wealth is created, not just where it is displayed. They are meant to be escalators into the middle class, not penthouses for the upper class. But through bad policy and worse politics, we are doing in the twenty-first century what we so feared in the ninetee

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