Professor Ed Glaeser's New Book Triumph of the City Published by Penguin Press
The Penguin Press has recently published Harvard Economics Professor Ed Glaeser’s new book Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier.
A pioneering urban economist offers fascinating,
even inspiring proof that the city is humanity's greatest invention and our
best hope for the future.
America is an urban nation. More than two thirds
of us live on the 3 percent of land that contains our cities. Yet cities get a
bad rap: they're dirty, poor, unhealthy, crime ridden, expensive,
environmentally unfriendly... Or are they?
As Edward Glaeser proves in this myth-shattering
book, cities are actually the healthiest, greenest, and richest (in cultural
and economic terms) places to live. New Yorkers, for instance, live longer than
other Americans; heart disease and cancer rates are lower in Gotham than in the
nation as a whole. More than half of America's income is earned in twenty-two
metropolitan areas. And city dwellers use, on average, 40 percent less energy
than suburbanites.
Glaeser travels through history and around the globe
to reveal the hidden workings of cities and how they bring out the best in
humankind. Even the worst cities-Kinshasa, Kolkata, Lagos- confer surprising
benefits on the people who flock to them, including better health and more jobs
than the rural areas that surround them. Glaeser visits Bangalore and Silicon
Valley, whose strangely similar histories prove how essential education is to
urban success and how new technology actually encourages people to gather
together physically. He discovers why Detroit is dying while other old
industrial cities-Chicago, Boston, New York-thrive. He investigates why a new
house costs 350 percent more in Los Angeles than in Houston, even though
building costs are only 25 percent higher in L.A. He pinpoints the single factor
that most influences urban growth-January temperatures-and explains how certain
chilly cities manage to defy that link. He explains how West Coast
environmentalists have harmed the environment, and how struggling cities from
Youngstown to New Orleans can "shrink to greatness." And he exposes
the dangerous anti-urban political bias that is harming both cities and the
entire country.
Using intrepid reportage, keen analysis, and
eloquent argument, Glaeser makes an impassioned case for the city's import and
splendor. He reminds us forcefully why we should nurture our cities or suffer
consequences that will hurt us all, no matter where we live.
Professor Ed Glaeser will be discussing his new book Triumph of the City at the Harvard Bookstore on Wednesday, February 16 at 7:00pm in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass.
Read more about Triumph of the City on Penguin.com
Available from Amazon.com
In Google books
On Boston.com
Ed Glaeser on The Daily Show on Feb. 14, 2011
Follow Triumph of the City on Twitter
For more information about Professor Glaeser’s work please see his faculty web page
© 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College