The Inexorable Move to Bigger Cities

If the world is so flat, then why are cities growing so quickly, especially in the third world?  That's the question Harvard economist Ed Glaeser attempts to answer in this NYT blog.  Growing cities are no accident, Glaeser writes. "Globalization and new technologies attract people to big cities, by increasing the returns to urban proximity."

"Globalization and technological change have increased the returns to being smart; human beings are a social species that get smart by hanging around smart people....Knowledge moves more quickly at close quarters," writes Glaeser.

If this is true -- and we know that it is -- then why do we continue to pursue urban policies that push us farther apart spatially?  Dumb, isn't it?

I heard Ed make the same point a few weeks ago when he and I shared a podium at the R.J. Daley Forum for Global Mayors.  Expect a new book exploring this topic from Ed next summer.

  

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