Triumph of the City
#2398 of 2,629 all-time
Triumph of the City
Ed Glaeser
3 people recommended it in 3 threads, 2015–2022.
What people on Hacker News said
Triumph of the City - an excellent take that can be used as food for thought when people are talking about how dirty cities are. In truth, the author argues, they are our greenest “invention” ever. Lots of good evidence.
Improvements in information technology seem to have increased, rather than reduced, the value of face-to-face connections, which might be called Jevons’s Complementarity Corollary.
The term Jevons’s paradox has come to refer to any situation in which efficiency improvements lead to more, not less, consumption—one reason why low-calorie cookies can lead to larger waistlines and fuel-efficient cars can end up consuming more gas.
Jevons’s paradox applied to information technology means that as we acquire more efficient means of transmitting information, like e-mail or Skype, we spend more, not less, time transmitting information.
But Jevons’s Complementarity Corollary, which follows naturally from Jevons’s paradox, predicts that improvements in information technology can lead to more demand for face-to-face contact, because face time complements time spent communicating electronically.
Where it comes up
- Ask HN: Which books you have read till now that were worth investing time in? 2022 · 1 recommendation
- Ask HN: Which book are you reading these days? 2015 · 1 recommendation
- The Best Business Book I’ve Ever Read (2014) 2015 · 1 recommendation