Jane Jacobs on the nature of economies
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- Опубліковано 16 чер 2011
- "[T]he New Urbanists want to have lively centers in the places that they develop, where people run into each other doing errands and that sort of thing. And yet, from what I've seen of their plans and the places they have built, they don't seem to have a sense of the anatomy of these hearts, these centers. They've placed them as if they were shopping centers. They don't connect." - Jane Jacobs
I love Jane Jacobs! I think the best part that gets to the heart of this book about bifurcations, feedback loops is 7:16 to 8:11. "Governments are the last place new ideas sink in" and "some believe stock markets are the economy, stock markets are symptoms"!
The interviewer really showed a great reflection of common thought about economies and the world more generally, riddled with all its misconceptions.
Jane Jacobs, my hero
I'm currently reading the new biography about her by Robert Kanigel. Good stuff! Check it out! :-)
"People on the edge of the economy can't be very philanthopic"
My experience in the slums of Manila would cause me to disagree. I was met by overwhelming generosity. People gave from the small resources they had. We had a typhoon rake through and people lent tin, cardboard and bricks to each other so they could rebuild shelters.
I took that as "people on the edge of economies are often as philanthropic as they can be, which isn't very much in relative economic terms."
Billionaires can build institutions, poor people can participate in mutual aid. But one of those things has much more effect on the broader economy than the other.
Ironically mutual aid may have less reach, but it's actually more robust (as you've already explained). So when institutions fail, mutual aid ends up being the only thing we have left.
An economy is the billions and billions of economic decisions made every day by everyone. I woke up this morning at six (let's say) and walked over to the 7/11 (rather than drive thus saving gas and wear and tear on my car...decisions that would determine later decisions) and bought a sweet roll, coffee and a newspaper. I could have purchased any of the thousands of items in that store or none at all, thus moving the economic life of the world, in a minuscule way. Add up all of the decisions and all of the billions of people doing the same thing PLUS much more, and you get an economy. That is why planned economies fail. No one can predict the wants and needs of the consumer well enough. Economics is the ultimate success and fail system where producers learn how to conduct their business. But government involvement in the economy , even though all of the information of past performance by consumers and producers is out there, has shown that it is demonstrably nearly impossible to pick winners and losers. A fluid, free and competitive market-place is the only way to have a healthy, vibrant, and prosperous society.
And all of that is only the consuming side of the equation. Producers have to make similar decisions. It is really an "invisible hand" that dictates what an economy shall be like.
This old gal was a genius.
Evan Solomon is the interviewer
Jane Jacobs during this interview suggested Canadians look to Iceland for insight into how to establish the right sort of societal structure to encourage diverse economic activity. This interview occurred prior to the collapse of the Iceland banking system caused by investment in highly risky financial instruments.
Her criticism of government is certainly warranted. Her observation that few people understand how economies function because what they have learned is wrong but difficult to leave behind. A review of her writing reveals, however, that she does not fully recognize the connection between the hoarding of land, land speculation and the privatization of rents associated with land and land-like assets. Had she lived to experience the 2008 financial collapse and heard the analysis presented by economists such as Joseph Stiglitz and Mason Gaffney, she may have come around to an appreciation of the destructive impact of "rent-seeking" generally, and particularly as this applies to the control over tracts of agricultural or mineral-laden land, urban land parcels, the broadcast spectrum, or even take-off and landing slots at airports. Rents are a fundamental driver of our boom-to-bust cycles; and, as rents become more highly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals and corporate entities, the more severe and longer lasting will be future economic crises.
Edward Dodson
Jane Jacobs romanticizes these run down neighbourhoods while never having lived a day in them. She has no idea the shit that goes on in those places. I've gotten my place broken into, and had to do chest compression on some guy who got stabbed. No one is happy in these shitty hoods that would light up like fireworks because they don't conform to modern fire safety.
She doesn't realize that suburbs form as a result of changing economy and people wanting to flee from these shit ass hoods, not some evil illuminati planning to segregate people.
My essential point is that Jane Jacobs and many other thoughtful, well-intentioned people, advocate "solutions" to social problems that are doomed to fail. Yes, people do move for safety when they can. More often, the main motivation to move is economic. Where the jobs are people follow.
Not just her, most academics are delusional. I wish I wasn't as naive back then before I lived in a few places.
In Vancouver, they would advocate for local food and their way of achieving that is to take up a valuable plot of land near downtown and turn it into a crappy farm. Meanwhile, swaths of farmlands in the outskirts disappear because farmers can't afford to be farmers anymore. The real solution would have been to subsidize farmers or get rid of NAFTA but no, make a little shitty farm in Downtown where there's already a housing shortage.
@bulgeland4 Who is Ann?
I would just like to expand on the point Jane Jacobs raised from 00:56 to 2:00 roughly. The claim Jane Jacobs made was that 'greed' and 'envy' must based on 'things' thus 'economies' (the collection of things) will always have 'greed' and 'envy' tied to it.
I would like to expand on or slightly challenge the notion that 'greed/envy' is tied to 'things' as a 'origin-source'. I believe it is the 'things' utility to us. For example using spears, the greed and envy of the spear is that it can get more food, is safer, more effective, faster and a host of other aspects but the reason it's important is that improves the livelihood. So while I agree 'greed/envy' are connected to 'things' it has a close partner of 'utility-life improvement index' or something. And I would say even in that paradox there is a scale...the starving child/adult in the street stealing an apple isn't greed or envy.
It's neat to see the connectedness of a virtue-system and economies.
Great discussion/vid! Thank you!
rip 16-04
evan solomon cbc
didn't iceland's economy debunk?
JANE J is the HOTTIE