Armbruster [basically, he's the host of the discussion]: “So is there any practical value or advantage in knowing that economic development is differentiations emerging from generalities?”

“Yes,” replied Hiram [basically a stand-in for Jacobs]. “It tells us that development isn’t a collection of things but rather a process that yields things. Not knowing this, governments, their development and aid agencies, the World Bank, and much of the public put faith in a fallacious ‘Thing Theory’ of develoopment. The Thing Theory supposes that development is the result of [a locality merely] possessing things such as factories, dams, schools, tractors, whatever — often bunches of things subsumed under the category of infrastructure.

“However, if the development process is lacking in a town or other settlement, things either given or sold to it are merely products of the [development] process somewhere else. They don’t [however] mysteriously carry the process along with them. To suppose that things, per se, are sufficient to produce development creates false expectations and futilities. Worse, it evades measures that might actually foster [real] development.”

“Such as?” asked Armbruster.

“Think[ing] about how the process works and therefore what it requires,” said Hiram.

(Page 32, March 2001 Vintage paperback edition.)

2) “In the Soviet Unioin, development initiatives and decisions were in the hands of bureaucrats. Just as you might expect, the development of bureucratic and military work proliferated, but too little else was developed. The eight million employees in the bureaucracies that did the Soviet Union’s economic planning were believers in the Thing Theory of development — but then, so are our own [American] policy makers, politicians, and civil servants, for the most part.” (Pages 33-34.)

Armbruster [basically, he's the host of the discussion]: “So is there any practical value or advantage in knowing that economic development is differentiations emerging from generalities?”

“Yes,” replied Hiram [basically a stand-in for Jacobs]. “It tells us that development isn’t a collection of things but rather a process that yields things. Not knowing this, governments, their development and aid agencies, the World Bank, and much of the public put faith in a fallacious ‘Thing Theory’ of develoopment. The Thing Theory supposes that development is the result of [a locality merely] possessing things such as factories, dams, schools, tractors, whatever — often bunches of things subsumed under the category of infrastructure.

“However, if the development process is lacking in a town or other settlement, things either given or sold to it are merely products of the [development] process somewhere else. They don’t [however] mysteriously carry the process along with them. To suppose that things, per se, are sufficient to produce development creates false expectations and futilities. Worse, it evades measures that might actually foster [real] development.”

“Such as?” asked Armbruster.

“Think[ing] about how the process works and therefore what it requires,” said Hiram.

(Page 32, March 2001 Vintage paperback edition.)

2) “In the Soviet Unioin, development initiatives and decisions were in the hands of bureaucrats. Just as you might expect, the development of bureucratic and military work proliferated, but too little else was developed. The eight million employees in the bureaucracies that did the Soviet Union’s economic planning were believers in the Thing Theory of development — but then, so are our own [American] policy makers, politicians, and civil servants, for the most part.” (Pages 33-34.)

If this is true, I think it just goes to show that, at least sometimes, you’ve got to be careful about “free” “infrastructure” money — in the end, if not used wisely, it can be very costly.

If this is true, I think it just goes to show that, at least sometimes, you’ve got to be careful about “free” “infrastructure” money — in the end, if not used wisely, it can be very costly.

Economy of Cities (hardcover, pg. 225 onward) [The comments within the Jacobs' quotes that are within the brackets are mine -- BH]

“. . . economic development is expensive and when development work is [misguidely] skimped or obstructed, large amounts of capital thus become available for other [wasteful] uses instead.

Consider, for a moment how much investment in new and young enterprises might be bought with $300,000,000 . . . . I mention the sum of $300,000,000 because it happens to be the amount of money that was spent in the 1950s upon public housing and related public ["infrastructure"] construction in one district of New York [City], East Harlem, which has a population of about 200,000 persons. The economic problems of East Harlem are now worse, if anything, than before this expenditure was made . . . No money to speak of goes into East Harlem for [business] people there to use producing goods and services [i.e., goods and services that businesses, including small businesses, use to produce other goods and services], developing new work, and becoming economically self-supporting. But this is obviously not owing to lack of capital, per se; witness the $300,000,000 made available to the housing ["infrastructure"] projects.”

In a footnote she mentions, “Incidentally, more than 1,300 commercial enterprises, of which a large proportion belonged to Puerto Ricans, and more than 500 noncommercial enterprises were destroyed, because they were physically in the way of the housing projects [and, particularly, because they were in the way of the planners' obsession with supposedly park-like "open spaces"].

“Lack of capital, per se, has obviously not been the reason for lack of a relatively modest investment in devlopment of new work. Consider the billions of dollars available for highways, many of which are pure makework for powerful construction unions.”

In a footnote she then adds, “Just one stretch of such highway ["infrastructure" -- the Lower Manahttan Expressway that Jacobs was a leader in fighting?] in New York City, less than two miles long — which will solve nothing and indeed will only compund present traffic and pollution problems — will destroy or dislocate [in the Lower East Side, Little Italy, what is now called SoHo and the South Village] some 800 businesses empoying about ten thousand persons, and will cost close to $200,000,000. It is being pushed by an alliance of the construction labor unions, one of the city’s two largest banks, and a number of government agencies whose own growth depends upon this and similar projects.”

P.S. — Looking back, what was the better “infrastructure” investment for NYC?: 1) vast sums of public money to be spent on DESTROYING existing buildings, both commercial and residential, in the Lower East Side, Little Italy, SoHo and the South Village to build an unneeded highway; or 2) much smaller sums of public moneies used to maintain and gently upgrade the existing infrastructure (e.g., streets, sewers, etc.) which allowed the private sector to reinvent [in spectacularly economically productive fashion, by the way!] the existing stock of buildings, businesses and residences?

- – - – -

P.S. — In case I don’t get a chance to get to it, the Jane Jacobs analysis of the Tennessee Valley Authority that I was thinking of is not in the “Economy of Cities,” but in “Cities and the Wealth of Nations.” (It’s most of Chapter 8, “Capital for Regions Without Cities” — pages 110-123 in the paperback edition that I have).

Economy of Cities (hardcover, pg. 225 onward) [The comments within the Jacobs' quotes that are within the brackets are mine -- BH]

“. . . economic development is expensive and when development work is [misguidely] skimped or obstructed, large amounts of capital thus become available for other [wasteful] uses instead.

Consider, for a moment how much investment in new and young enterprises might be bought with $300,000,000 . . . . I mention the sum of $300,000,000 because it happens to be the amount of money that was spent in the 1950s upon public housing and related public ["infrastructure"] construction in one district of New York [City], East Harlem, which has a population of about 200,000 persons. The economic problems of East Harlem are now worse, if anything, than before this expenditure was made . . . No money to speak of goes into East Harlem for [business] people there to use producing goods and services [i.e., goods and services that businesses, including small businesses, use to produce other goods and services], developing new work, and becoming economically self-supporting. But this is obviously not owing to lack of capital, per se; witness the $300,000,000 made available to the housing ["infrastructure"] projects.”

In a footnote she mentions, “Incidentally, more than 1,300 commercial enterprises, of which a large proportion belonged to Puerto Ricans, and more than 500 noncommercial enterprises were destroyed, because they were physically in the way of the housing projects [and, particularly, because they were in the way of the planners' obsession with supposedly park-like "open spaces"].

“Lack of capital, per se, has obviously not been the reason for lack of a relatively modest investment in devlopment of new work. Consider the billions of dollars available for highways, many of which are pure makework for powerful construction unions.”

In a footnote she then adds, “Just one stretch of such highway ["infrastructure" -- the Lower Manahttan Expressway that Jacobs was a leader in fighting?] in New York City, less than two miles long — which will solve nothing and indeed will only compund present traffic and pollution problems — will destroy or dislocate [in the Lower East Side, Little Italy, what is now called SoHo and the South Village] some 800 businesses empoying about ten thousand persons, and will cost close to $200,000,000. It is being pushed by an alliance of the construction labor unions, one of the city’s two largest banks, and a number of government agencies whose own growth depends upon this and similar projects.”

P.S. — Looking back, what was the better “infrastructure” investment for NYC?: 1) vast sums of public money to be spent on DESTROYING existing buildings, both commercial and residential, in the Lower East Side, Little Italy, SoHo and the South Village to build an unneeded highway; or 2) much smaller sums of public moneies used to maintain and gently upgrade the existing infrastructure (e.g., streets, sewers, etc.) which allowed the private sector to reinvent [in spectacularly economically productive fashion, by the way!] the existing stock of buildings, businesses and residences?

- – - – -

P.S. — In case I don’t get a chance to get to it, the Jane Jacobs analysis of the Tennessee Valley Authority that I was thinking of is not in the “Economy of Cities,” but in “Cities and the Wealth of Nations.” (It’s most of Chapter 8, “Capital for Regions Without Cities” — pages 110-123 in the paperback edition that I have).

I recently picked up “The Economy of Cities”. I’m going to start reading right away….