- Paperback: 266 pages
- Publisher: Random House USA Inc; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (7 Oct 1988)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0394729110
- ISBN-13: 978-0394729114
- Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 1.5 x 18.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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529,078 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #94 in Books > Business, Finance & Law > Economics > History
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Product Description
Product Description
"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
"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
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For a little while in the middle of this century it seemed that the wild, intractable, dismal science of economics had yielded up something we all want: instructions for getting or keeping prosperity. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
For a little while in the middle of this century it seemed that the wild, intractable, dismal science of economics had yielded up something we all want: instructions for getting or keeping prosperity. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Contrary to what is implied by a previous review, this book isn't a clarion-call to arms against globalisation and free-trade agreements, if you're looking for that, check out George Monbiot and similar writers. Having said that, there is a call for developed countries (through enlightened self-interest) to allow developing nations to erect tariff barriers while they develop - something that the early USA used to shield it's fledgeling industries from European manufactures... to the great benefit of both competing parties in the long run.
An example of a key concept: import replacing, whereby a city imports (say) bicycles, leading to development of its own bicycle repair industry, thus gaining skills and component manufacturing in this area, and so going on to become a bicycle exporter in its own turn. In the meantime, the previous bicycle exporting city will (if it has a healthy, import-replacing economy) also have moved on to other, new activities by replacing an import of its own.
Jacobs uses concepts like this to explain, convincingly, facts as diverse as the poverty of the Tennessee Valley area at the time of the famous (and ineffective, according to Jacobs) TVA project, the rise of the Asian tiger economies, why many cities stagnate, and the apparently inevitable decline of great military/imperial powers.
If you've read Jane Jacobs' earlier book on this topic (The Economy of Cities), her main theses on city economies will be somewhat familiar, but this is possibly more accessible and up to date; if you're only going to read one of Jacobs' books, then make it this one. You might then, like me, go back and lay your hands on everything that she has written that is still in print. For anyone who has an interest in economics, she really is that good.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format: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.
4 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a chilling repudiation of every word of our current economic gospel of global trade. Its central premise is that the metropolitan area or city-state is a fundamental economic building block, self-regulating and self-sustaining until outside forces conspire against it -- and what are shared currencies, free-trade agreements and globalization of markets for goods and labor but those very outside forces? If Jacobs' theory is correct -- and Lord help us, but I think it is -- we're on a runaway train in exactly the opposite direction we need to be going in to restore economic stability and fairness to the world. Everyone should read this book, if only to absorb a well-argued rebuttal to the free-trade propaganda with which we're constantly bombarded.
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