the economy of cities

by jane jacobs. i didn't like this nearly as well as The Death and Life of Great American Cities, (which is fantastic) but maybe its because i know shit about economics. her basic thesis is that it is cities that allow rural land and agriculture to develop rather than the other way around. cities invent and towns and farms implement. i guess this wasn't terribly surprising to me, but, again, i've engaged in little reading on economic theory. she mentions only in passing that

The effects of economic stagnation upon nature are veiled when populations are so scanty and so primitive in their technologies that anything they do has relatively little effect upon the rest of the natural world. But once a society has developed its economy appreciably, and thus has increased its population appreciably too, any serious stagnation becomes appallingly destructive to the environment. Common sequels in the past have been deforestation, complete destruction of wild life, loss of soil fertility and the lowering of water tables.

but this is all she says about it. its not clear to me what she means by stagnation, which made me frustrated for a more telling account. this statement to me seems counter to the theory in Ishmael where she believes technological progress will right a wrong world. but i had to guess because, again, that's all she said about it.

some other nuggets.

one of the social preconditions for economic development is not so much the opportunity for a person to change his work (and his class) from that of his father, as if often supposed, but rather the possibility of changing radically his own work and his own place in society during his own working life.

so, just when i thought i wasn't contributing to the economy by leaving engineering, according to JJ, i am. neat.

and:

When organizations that are already large decide to embark on a program of adding new goods and services, they seldom start by adding onto the divisions of labor they already have. They buy up others, to provide parent work for the new purposes they have in mind.

in other words, actual R&D typically does not (and will not) come from large companies. they can't afford the risk of development costs not paying off (something like 9 of 10 ideas fail). so big companies buy small ones. this is exactly what i saw while working. new exciting work done by the start-ups whereas the larger companies work on their quarterly profits ensuring the bread will be on the table. this is what drove me mad. the tendency of the masses to participate in maintenence, not innovation.