City Economics

Brendan O'Flaherty

Published by Harvard University Press 2005

City Economics

Brendan O'Flaherty

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674041615

Overview
Contents

About this book

This introductory textbook on the economics of cities is for students of urban and regional policy and of undergraduate economics. It deals with standard topics, including transportation, pollution, housing, and education, but also discusses topics such as segregation, water supply, sewerage, garbage, homelessness, crime, and economic development.

Reviews

This brilliant book, half textbook, half treatise, provides a magisterial overview of city economics that tempers an optimistic vision of the city's potential for advancing the human condition with a recognition of the constraints imposed by scarcity. In contrast to other urban economics textbooks, this book eschews unnecessary technique, draws widely from the other social sciences, and devotes considerable attention to urban social problems. And in contrast to other urbanist treatises, it stresses analytical reasoning and confronts squarely the difficult tradeoffs involved in almost all policy choices. Written in a conversational style, City Economics—which might be subtitled the very intelligent layman's guide to urban economics—demands concentration but the perseverant reader will be richly rewarded.
-- Richard Arnott, Boston College

City Economics is provocative, thoughtful, engaging, and challenging. O'Flaherty deals with broad and important themes in imaginative and straightforward ways, and this book will instruct and inspire students for a generation.
-- Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University, and editor of The Encyclopedia of New York City

City Economics is an engaging book for those who want to know how to make cities better for living, working, and playing. Students, scholars and public officials all can learn from this non-traditional though disciplined-based approach to urban economics.
-- Susan Wachter, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

This book is firmly located in urban economics, and it adopts a deliberate and provocative approach to the usual subject headings and methodological debates in this area. It will be attractive to undergraduates in geography, economics, sociology and politics as well as to taught masters in courses in public administration, urban policy, public policy, transport and government. Students and teachers will be attracted to its no-nonsense style and its focus on recognisable subject areas...Each chapter is followed by questions suitable for those wanting to check on their progress and for teachers looking for succinct questions to put to students. This approach works well; as a textbook, City Economics has much to recommend it. Indeed, for many readers the text will be a welcome relief from the esoteric world of Pareto optimality, comparative advantage, externalities, consumer surplus and elasticities, concepts that would normally dominate in this kind of book. Brendan O'Flaherty's approach is more likely to reveal the importance and relevance of these concepts and tools than the usual methodological exposition...City Economics is challenging and fascinating.
-- John Whitelegg Times Higher Education Supplement

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
Chapter 1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Why Proximity Is Good Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	12
Chapter 3. Cars, Pollution, And Accidents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	34
Chapter 4. Congestion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
Chapter 5. Mass Transit Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	86
Chapter 6. Land Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	116
Chapter 7. Too Many Cars? Too Much Lawn? Too Much Blight? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Chapter 8. Rules Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Chapter 9. Water, Sewers, Fire, And Garbage Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Chapter 10. Education Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Chapter 11. Race And Space Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	286
Chapter 12. Race And Policy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	316
Chapter 13. Housing: The Big Picture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	348
Chapter 14. Housing And Poor People Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	390
Chapter 15. Homelessness Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	423
Chapter 16. Crime Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	441
Chapter 17. Drugs, Guns, And Alcohol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	483
Chapter 18. Urban Economic Development Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	517
Epilogue Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	569
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	571
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	577

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 608

eBook

Published: October 30, 2005
ISBN: 9780674041615