Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser - Book Report #223

How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier

Well this came as a surprise to me.  When I was adding labels to this post the author's name came up as a pre-selection.

Hmm.

Yup.  I've read this book before and completely forgot about it.  The difference today is that I enjoyed it as an audiobook.  

After reading the old post from 2015 I find that the book made the same impression on me now as it did then.

Let me lead you back to that post for a review.

https://eric-the-mailman.blogspot.ca/2015/08/triumph-of-city-by-edward-glaeser-book.html

Edward Glaeser's website - https://scholar.harvard.edu/glaeser

Edward Glaeser

Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser - Book Report #140

One more in my quest for the good in the world. Here Glaeser makes a compelling and well researched argument that the city is humanity's best invention.

I came to this book after listening to the Freakonomics podcast from May 6, 2015 titled Could The Next Brooklyn Be ... Las Vegas?!  Listen to that as a good companion to the book.  You can find it here:

http://freakonomics.com/2015/05/11/could-the-next-brooklyn-be-las-vegas-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

Everything you love and hate about city life is explored; the very nature of crowds,  people bumping into each other and exchanging ideas has led to advancements in science, business and the arts. 

By compressing people and building up, instead of sprawling out we take up much less land and reduce our individual carbon footprint. 

My favourite thought came from chapter 8, titled Is There Anything Greener Than Blacktop?  "If you love nature, stay away from it."

 

He also tackles the difficult subject of cities in decline, think Detroit of today and New York of the 1970's and how cities have re-imagined themselves over and over again. 

All in all I found this book to be a fascinating read. It made me think of where my city is doing things right and where it is not.

Edward Glaeser