Cities and the Wealth of Nations [Paperback]

Jane Jacobs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 1985

"Learned, iconoclastic and exciting...Jacobs' diagnosis of the decay of cities in an increasingly integrated world economy is on the mark."—New York Times Book Review

"Jacobs' book is inspired, idiosyncratic and personal...It is written with verve and humor; for a work of embattled theory, it is wonderfully concrete, and its leaps are breathtaking."—Los Angeles Times

"Not only comprehensible but entertaining...Like Mrs. Jacobs' other books, it offers a concrete approach to an abstract and elusive subject. That, all by itself, makes for an intoxicating experience."—New York Times

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"It offers a concrete approach to an abstract and elusive subject. That, all by itself, makes for an intoxicating experience."--The New York Times

About the Author

Jane Jacobs was the legendary author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, a work that has never gone out of print and that has transformed the disciplines of urban planning and city architecture. Her other major works include The Economy of Cities, Systems of Survival, The Nature of Economies and Dark Age Ahead. She died in 2006.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 12, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394729110
• ISBN-13: 978-0394729114
• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 0.6 x 7.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wealth Creation, February 21, 2001

By 

Professor Joseph L. McCauley "Joseph L. McCauley" (Austria+Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cities and the Wealth of Nations (Paperback)

"Any settlement that becomes import-replacing becomes a city." Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Jane Jacobs

Written by an economist, this is a very unusual book. Ms. Jacobs is not hampered by orthodox preconceived notions, misleading postulated theoretical myths like utility optimization, rationality, or efficient markets. These standard phrases of neo-classical economic theory cannot be found in her book. Instead, and although her discussion is entirely nonmathematical, she uses a crude qualtitative idea of excess demand dynamics, of growth vs. decline. Her expectation is never of equilibrium. The notion of equilibrium never appears in this book. Jacobs instead describes qualitatively the reality of nonequilibrium in the economic life of cities, regions, and nations. She concentrates on the surprises of economic reality.

Jacobs argues fairly convincingly that significant, distributed wealth is created by cities that are inventive enough to replace imports by their own local production, that this is the only reliable source of wealth for cities in the long run, and that these cities need other like-minded cities to trade with in order to survive and prosper. Her expectation is of growth or decline, not of equilibrium. If she is right then the Euro and the European Union are a bad mistake, going entirely in the wrong direction. As examples in support of her argument she points to independent cites like Singapore and Hong Kong with their own local currencies. Other interesting case histories are TVA, small villages in France and Japan, other cases in Italy, Columbia, Ethiopia, US, Iran, ... .

The book begins in the chapter "Fool's Paradise' with discussions of Keynsian economics and Phillips curves (the Philips curve idea is demolished convincingly by Ormerod in "The Death of Economics"), I. Fisher and monetarism, and Marxism. These were all ideas requiring equilibria of one sort or another. Also interesting: her description why, in the long run, imperialism is bound to fail, written in 1984, well before the fall of the USSR. Her prediction for the fate of the West is not better. Jacobs is aware of the idea of feedback and relies on it well and heavily. She is a sharp observor of economic behavior and is well versed in economic history. This book will likely be found interesting by a scientifically-minded reader who is curious about how economies work, and why all older theoretical ideas (Keynes, monetarism, ... ) have failed to describe economies as they evolve.

I'm grateful to Yi-Ching Zhang of the Econophysics Forum for recommending this book.

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Specialization and Adaptation, November 13, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Carp Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cities and the Wealth of Nations (Paperback)

Jacobs writes convincingly that individual firms are not the basis of the economy. She identifies the city as a place in which economic activity is generated by a network of interlocking dependencies amkng firms as the basis of an economic analysis. She identifies these interdependencies as either being capable of adapting to change or incapable. A closed fixed system of interdependencies is the hallmark of a city (or a firm) which is ready for decline. Cities or enterprises in which the economic components are free to exploit new opportunties can adapt to challenges from outside. Jacobs charaterizes this adaptation as taking the form of a specialization of an existing economic component to supply a new need.

Contary to popular belief this notion of local as central to economic life is not opposed to glabalization. On the contrary it is opposed to the view that the nation state is central. Jacob's analysis explains economics as global network of independent local units. In this network each local unit will continuously adapt to the challenges and opportunities supplied by the needs and supplies of the other units.

Jacobs shows that only by being open to change, by being willing to adapt, by being willing to let old ways die oif they no longer serve their purpose can a city or an enterprise ensure its long term survival.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exciting, observant, and enduring work, April 26, 2000

By 

Eric "pop culture junkie" (FERNDALE, MI, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cities and the Wealth of Nations (Paperback)

Wow. Jacobs is so adept at explaining the complex currents of global, national and local economies that even the casual reader will be spellbound. The book is simultaneously radical (she essentially repudiates all modern macro-economic theory) and reasonable. This book is a great asset to anyone who wishes to comprehend the world around them.