Reddit mentions: The best urban & regional economics books

The following comment operates on the assumption that you are interested in American urban planning from an administrative or public policy focus. For real estate development, urban design/architecture, or international issues, look elsewhere.

A solid, all purpose undergraduate major: philosophy. You can teach yourself subjects and even methods, but to learn how to think critically and write about complex subjects in a clear way you need quality, focused instruction and that's the purpose of philosophy. Outside of your general major requirements, take exclusively analytic philosophy courses. Typically there is an analytic philosophy survey course but for other courses identify which professors in your department operate in this tradition (and take teaching seriously) and take whatever courses they offer, regardless of your personal interest in the subject going in. Common subjects include logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, epistemology, etc. These courses will discipline your thinking and writing in ways that other majors won't. These skills are absolutely fundamental and lay the groundwork for a successful, highly adaptable career.

Outside of that major, which will fulfill your humanities requirements, you should fill your general requirements with courses like U.S. government (typically fulfilling a social science requirement), microeconomics and macroeconomics (social science, business, and occasionally quantitative), and environmental science (natural science). Take as many economics courses as you can. You can also take a basic geography course focused on cities but in my experience these courses teach you what you can easily learn from disciplined study on your own time. Focus your electives on methods courses, specifically statistics and digital mapping (GIS). You can also easily learn these online but if you have to fill up requirements, stick with these.

"But wait, don't I need to know something about urban planning?" Definitely! But you don't need to use up valuable course time on this subjects unless you have top urban planning scholars teaching undergraduate courses at your school, which probably isn't the case. Feel free to share your program and I'm sure the great community here can point out any top scholars active there. Otherwise, focus on teaching yourself the subject over summer and winter breaks. Read books by esteemed experts/scholars/writers in the field. A few broad essentials, all of which should be available at your public library:

• "Death and Life of Great American Cities" by Jane Jacobs (the essential urban planning text)
  
  
• "Triumph of the City" by Edward Glaeser (urban economics)
  
  
• "Zoned in the USA" by Sonia Hirt (land use planning)
  
  
• "Walkable City" by Jeff Speck (transportation/urban design)
  
  
• "Cities of Tomorrow" by Peter Hall (urban theory/history - don't hesitate to save a ton of money by buying an older edition!)
  
  Other users are welcome to contribute what they see as essentials. The key here is to read about urban planning relentlessly in your free time (important: this includes blogs!) and focus your coursework on skills development. This combination of philosophy/methods coursework and disciplined, independent reading will make you not only an issue expert, which are a dime a dozen, but a productive expert, someone who can approach a completely new problem and produce useful results.
  
  This is the path I have followed and I have been happy with the results. Hope this helps.
  
  Edit: grammar errors, typos, etc. fixes.

This person fundamentally misunderstands and misinterprets almost every facet of urbanism and cities in the 21st century. It's absolutely incredible how willfully ignorant and purposefully dishonest this article is... the neurosis and cynicism is oozing from the page. The whole thing reads like someone attempting to veil their own depression, frustration, and anger at their own life in a bunch of pseudo-facts and floppy rhetoric. The amount of times the author tosses in 'cultural marxism' when he runs headlong into a mental wall and can't find anything meaningful to say would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing.

His reason for why cities are experiencing a renaissance and are desirable places to live for educated millennials?

>"[they] move to the big city.... in order to extend this infantile and adolescent lifestyle."

His evidence being that they want to get fucked up at festivals and hook up with people. What an incredibly intelligent and cogent analysis.

News flash, buddy: cities have been engines of innovation since Plato and Socrates bickered in an Athenian marketplace. Millennials couldn't possibly be moving to cities because of their role in fostering human achievement, or how they spur innovation by facilitating face-to-face interaction, or how they attract human capital and sharpen it through competition, or how they encourage entrepreneurship, or how they allow for social and economic mobility in ways that other places just can't match? It couldn't be because of their booming economic opportunities, or how they spur artistic innovation?

Nope, it's just because people want to have fun and have sex. Actually, so what if that's true? Why is it so bad that people are increasingly choosing where to live on the basis of pleasure as well as productivity? People like amenities and things to do-- theaters, restaurants, festivals, et cetera. Would you rather live within a few blocks of a dozen restaurants, a movie theater, music venues, and parks, or would you rather have to get into a car and drive 30 minutes to reach even one of these places? An increasingly prosperous world will continue to place more value on the innovative enjoyments that cities can provide, and that's not a bad thing. This doesn't even touch on the fact that the educated millennials who are enjoying these amenities are gainfully employed and are net producers of economic output and essential services (law, health care, research, tech, design, schools, banking, et cetera). Their jobs help each other and help others and the city at large.

This entire rant sounds like the dusty, envious frustrations of a person that feels they've "missed out" and is desperately trying to justify their place in the world in whatever way they possibly can.

Whoever wrote this abysmal, sad excuse for an article should pick up this book and see what actual evidence-based research says about the history of power of cities.

>No, I just assumed you're a rich city dweller who's never actually had to work a day in the field, and look to lose the least, and gain the most from the development of the world.

Spot on. Now we're talking. I sure hope that urbanisation keeps going the way it is. It's almost as if...cities are better. It could also be that I think my ancestors made a great move by coming to the city and I want to encourage and vouch for the process so that millions more can have better lives.

Luckily for me, voters keep voting for higher growth and more development.

"Individuals matter"

Happy? There, I stated the obvious. Would you like me to state other obvious things? 2+2=4 perhaps?

LegioXIV has covered the government dynamic. Let me say something about market dynamics.

The median salary in the United States is about $26k/year. The median household income is about $48k/year (nowadays often with 2 adults working).

Now let me direct you to this book, which provides much of the detail for my point. The greater the inequality, the more you will see "bubbles" (with a long-term tidal trend) driving up the prices of productive capital assets, or indeed of simply living near productive assets.

Because remember, sellers of capital assets aren't going to sell "Wal-Mart-grade" cheaper versions of stocks or bonds or index funds. We already had a housing bubble driven by the Wal-Martization of housing and the migration away from productive cities into cheap but unproductive hinterlands (see link). And even with the new crowd-funding law, you still need a lot of money and financial knowledge to do equity investment in early-stage start-up companies.

So the purchasing power of "the rich" (really: any given wealthy individual) on capital-asset markets rises with inequality (the degree to which this individual can outbid everyone else). With increased relative purchasing power will come increased prices and increased catering by the market towards that segment of buyers, as dictated by normal laws of supply and demand.

Thus, increasing inequality allows the rich to price everyone else out of access to productive capital. In layman's terms, increasing inequality means that starting an entry-level job at $80k/year in the Boston area only allows you to live in a one-bedroom apartment or with roommates, because housing prices have gotten so high that you need a six-figure (let's call that top-20%) income to afford your own house. This happened to me. Meanwhile, the folks across the state in Greenfield can't get jobs, and dream of how they would own the entire town if they made $80k/year.

Really, I should have used Manhattan as the example par excellence, but I didn't work or live in Manhattan.

Firstly on the resources for Urban planning. Well. Honestly, I haven't personally great online resources for learning about Urban planning. Various government institutions have released master plans and design guide documents (almost all are pretty boring). Your best bet (unfortunately) is in buying expensive books online and getting it shipped to you. There are plenty of great planning books for the European context. Particularly urban design books.

https://www.reddit.com/r/urbanplanning/wiki/readinglist Is worth a look at. (most are american focuses of course)

I think these might be useful to you.

https://www.amazon.com/City-Reader-5th-Routledge-Urban/dp/0415556651

https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Land-Planning-Alan-Evans/dp/140511861X

https://www.amazon.com/Urban-Economics-Arthur-OSullivan/dp/0073511471

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Streets-Press-Allan-Jacobs/dp/0262600234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536125765&sr=8-1&keywords=great+streets

​

On the green space/parking. Well firstly it really depends on:

A) what is the land parcel you already own here. Who owns the petrol station? What is the minimum set back from the Ma-6014 road?

B) What kind of funding do you have? Are you using a loan?

C) what are your zoning and planning powers here?

D) how many cars do you need to accommodate and how much of the parking share would be given for free and how will you pay for that (will the foreign parking pay for it? Will you need general revenue or will you lease out some land for commercial purposes to cover costs -and do you have the power to do that) -I'm personally against free parking but i get it's appeal and use as a planning tool-.

E) What kind of services does your town lack? Child care? Library (if within your level of government)? Flexible community space (i.e cheaply rent-able rooms for hire by community groups)?

F) What's the parking for anyway? Do people drive to your town to go to the beach (will it compete with the beach front parking)? Or do people use the town as a dormitory suburb for Parma and is that is why people park there? Will people be using the car park all the time? On the weekends? Mornings and at night in the week days?

​

Other random observations:

-How much demand is there fore more green space? The town seems to be pretty well provisioned with public space (even if there isn't much 'green' public space). There's also near by natural reserve.

-There's a lack of street trees east of the supermarket and police station.

- Whats up with the fence around the main park? For the children?

-From an urban design perspective, everything around that park is such a missed opportunity.

>Wages are low

In cities? Wages are lower in rural areas and the sunbelt.

>job opportunities are limited

This is what I think about LCOL rural areas with only a few low wage opportunities.

>So leaving is the best option if you can't get into that industry

Well different cities have different predominant industries. I think getting into an industry you in enjoy in a city that is the predominant area for that industry is the best plan of action. Reading this book, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier really influenced my thinking. https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549/.

Hi, I have a bachelors in Social Ecology from UC Irvine.

What are you asking? Whether or not the political philosophies of Bookchin are grounded in some kind of empirical science?

I'll look at it this way - Bookchin is a communalist, which emphasizes that land, economy, policies be owned/managed by indigenous communities (not just Natives - indigenous, meaning, locally placed communities). He says that an increase in the power of municipal governance would be the stepping stone to bring us to this state. Local communities in cities exercise their power - changing the structure of their town through their political agency. We are currently moving in this direction with a Metropolitan Revolution. Under Trump, whose administration will likely be removing federal programs, will increase the need for local political programs. Personally I'm excited to see what localities do given these circumstances.

At UC Irvine they have 3 departments composing the 'school' of Social Ecology - Criminology, Planning, Policy, and Design, and Social-Behavioral Psychology.

Each of these departments have various lenses through which they explore the human existence and our Social Ecology. Being apart of one, bigger school the faculty have access to one another and, in my experience, often find overlap between issues.

• Criminology, Law, and Society: Department of Criminology, Law and Society (CLS) study three related topics: (1) law making—the social, political, economic and cultural factors that lead to the development of law and explain the structure of our legal system; (2) law breaking—the causes and consequences of crime; and (3) the justice system—how (and how well) our system of justice is working and how it might be improved.
  
  
• Planning, Policy, and Design: Department of Planning, Policy and Design’s (PPD) unique mission at UC Irvine is to teach and undertake scholarship and community service at the intersection of three distinct areas: the natural environment, the built environment (including community design), and public policy implementation. This mission allows the department to creatively explore practical solutions to problems at the interstices of environmental protection, social justice, and community health, well-being, and security.
  
  
• Psychology and Social Behavior: Department of Psychology and Social Behavior (PSB)includes the developmental, social, personality, health, and legal aspects of psychology as well as biological, clinical, cultural, community, environmental, and ecological psychology. The faculty has an overarching interest in understanding the origins of human behavior as it develops across the life course and in diverse socio-cultural contexts.
  
  Social Ecology is one of many different disciplines through which the world is organized. It's a worldview, certainly, and I believe a grounded one at that.
  
  
  tl;dr: all knowledge is socially constructed and 'truth' is dependent on the community you are apart of. That said, there are empirical patterns to all processes, but the meaning behind those processes is determined by the meaning-constructing Human Being. Truth is relative, all things are relative, everything is relative, the Earth is alive, animals are conscious, the wind is driven by the moving currents of the Rivers in the Sky, the water we drink has been here since the dinosaurs, fossil fuels are the fossilized remains of ancient sunlight, humans have never been so far removed from nature in the history of mankind; and here we are, talking about it, through a technological device constructed through manipulated physical processes.

> Those experts don't know jack shit about Boris and Anastasia Q Public in Russia though.

I'm not really convinced about that. I recently read Putin Country from a journalist embedded in a region of Russia. I found it pretty insightful, and that was just from one journalist.

Now imagine what our entire CIA has on the general population in Russia. And imagine what Russia has on the US when we have a pretty open society that shares everything about themselves online.

I don't want to rule out that the Russian propaganda campaign received help with targeting. You might be entirely correct! I just don't want to take it as a foregone conclusion, whether the efforts were to boost Trump support or to suppress Clinton support.

I don't think "everything needs to be centralized." If people want to live in the suburbs or rural areas, good for them!

But cities are really awesome and really useful. The state officeworkers probably want some places to eat. This location is literally across the street from a sandwich shop. In addition, there are dozens of other food options within a mile or so. Because there's a big cluster of people working, people have to travel less far to get lunch and they have a wider variety of options.

All the people who work there would probably like to live nearby where they work. But so would the people who work at the lunch places, and they'd both like to live near where their kids go to school, and their church, etc. If they were far outside the city, at least some of things they'd want would be very far away and harder to access.

I could go on and on, but if you're interested, I suggest reading the very short Gated City by Ryan Avent about the economic benefits of cities or much longer (and more boring) Triumph of the City by Edward Glaeser.

Hey, I honestly stated it. Take it for what it is, possible flaws, things that may be cause for concern. I can't instantly gain all the knowledge I need on the subject. Fortunately I just got back from reading about their outline and it seems my concerns were correct.

www.zede.gob.hn/?page_id=2

>which are inalienable part of the State of Honduras, subject to the Constitution of the Republic and the national government on issues related to sovereignty, administration of justice, territory, national defense, external relations, electoral issues, issuance of identity cards and passports, as established in Article 329, in its seventh paragraph of the Constitution of the Republic.

>Within them, have full applicability of Articles 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 19 of the Constitution of the Republic.
http://www.honduras.com/honduras-constitution/

This is not something libertarians and ancaps in particular should be promoting right now as a test of ideology because there's a very real chance that this will turn out badly. It really isn't anywhere close to being anarcho-capitalist, it's just another state, although one that claims will be much freer. With the incredibly corrupt and harmful Honduran government available for multinational corporations to tap, along with all the problems of their structure, some listed above, it's very possible that this won't turn out well, that they'll become very unlibertarian, and their poor outcome will be paraded by the left as an example of the failure of libertarian ideology.

I'm not going to predict anything, and I don't think anyone else should either. It's best to take a wait and see approach, to state concerns, and uncertainty about whether they will actually fulfill their promise.

The main thing I hope for is that they'll be extremely economically liberal when it comes to legislation on land use, zoning, and building (heights, minimum space). Hopefully they'll allow something that follows Ryan Avent's guidelines in The Gated City (highly recommended). It would be incredible to have a city with unlimited height and density. I want to see megastructures already.
http://www.amazon.com/Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005KGATLO

This response ignores the fact that cities are not made up of buildings, cities are made up of people. While interstates helped create suburban sprawl (which isn't of itself a bad thing), they also lead to huge innovation in supply chain management which has led to much cheaper consumer products. Cheaper goods act as an income boost to everyone. Offsetting the large cost of investment. Triumph of the city by Edward Glaeser is a good read if you're interested about this sort of stuff

Haha, I share your aversion. However, when I say Glaeser is a brilliant writer, I mean it. I have dreams about his zoning essay. I find him better than Friedman.

http://www.amazon.it/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549 this is his recent one

http://www.amazon.it/The-Geography-Jobs-Enrico-Moretti/dp/0547750110/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=51gWwxQtmCL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=1P23JD8ZZBE8R8YBGM1K this is another one i read

These results show that we should be building more housing near transit stations, since people want to live there. Limiting Capitol Hill heights to 65" (or 85" on top of the new station) is crazy. Mass transit and density are yin and yang. Edward Glaeser details why in Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier.

High rents and housing costs are not a law of nature. They're a political choice.

This book is a good read

One of the core ideas is that, counterintuitively, technological connectivity has made space in cities more valuable, not less, because despite things like video chat and email, etc, the best place for a business is still in the places where people are physically nearby.

It would be nice if we could see the numbers a bit more clearly... And a lot of this should be obvious, since it costs a lot less to provide utilities and resources to 10 families living in one building than 10 families living in 10 buildings, all 1/4 mile apart. The problem in America is the actual cost of a home doesn't accurately portray how much it actually costs to live there, so people think their big home in the burbs is such a good deal compared to the comparitively tiny urban counterpart, and then they don't know why the suburban municipalities often don't have enough resources to construct improved utilities, public works projects, etc. I recommend reading The End of the Suburbs by Leigh Gallagher if this topic interests you.

I agree they could if you don't live in or near a big city. I think cities provide valuable network effects which enable ones spouse to have a good career and enable employees to switch jobs without moving.
https://www.amazon.com/Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005KGATLO

Good news! I found publicly available articles.

A quick summary of the variety of forces arrayed against black communities and the intergenerational health and wealth impacts that result - Mortgage Foreclosure and Health Disparities: Serial Displacement as Asset Extraction in African American Populations

Paper on serial displacement of black communities - Serial Forced Displacement in American Cities, 1916–2010

For more in depth analysis I recommend the books Root Shock and The Geography of Opportunity.

No you are arguing against megacities and economic command centers they facilitate. To create or rathe in London's case sustain such a city you need to pump in large amounts of resources, the benefits however outweigh the costs,there is a good book on it here if you are interested, old now though. Some of the basic points are to do with attracting FDI and spreading the cost of infrastructure projects.

>Keeping wealth in one region at the expense of the rest is what this guy is arguing against.

There are problems, no model is perfect, but the economics of Megacities have many many advantages. It the reason why we see so many all over the world in different cultures, societies and economies of all sizes.

Building vertically has huge benefits both economically and environmentally. Of course it doesn't do much in terms of historic preservation and its visual impact is debatable. This book is a good read on the issue: http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549

You can't mandate affordable housing. We tried that in the US in the 60s and 70s. What actually works is loosening of zoning restrictions and barriers to density in order to profitably and rapidly expand the housing stock. Unless you want to fully nationalize real estate and construction, you have to have policies that enable profitable construction and careful shepherding of restrictions so that they protect clean and functional living space, but do not place arbitrary limits that drive up housing costs, as is the case in most "liberal" cities.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rent-Too-Damn-High-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO

http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549

http://www.amazon.com/The-Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005KGATLO

If you e-mail/Tweet at the authors, they are actually really helpful. Search Google & Twitter and you should be able to contact them.

Also, while on the topic of books: check out Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser: http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549

The key idea is not that tall buildings automatically result in low rents. It's that more buildings (including more tall buildings when all the land has been used up) will lower rents. So New York should also allow more building, for the exact same reason.

The reason rents are so high is that lots of people want to live in London and New York and regulations (and local neighborhood groups) prevent developers from building enough housing for all of them. Some of the regulations are worth it! Historic preservation, maintaining historic views, etc. really are worth something. But they're not free. Residents pay for it in higher rents. And people who want to move there but can't afford it pay for it in being locked out.

The concept is laid out in better writing and with more evidence in two short e-books on the subject (not written by me) here and [here](http://www.amazon.com/Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005KGATLO/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1396795981&sr=1-2&keywords=the+rent+is+too+damn+high "this guy now writes for The Economist").

Here's a great book to counter!, and at the BLS look at the different employment time series since 97.

Productivity and population are also closely linked. I can't remember the exact #'s, but when density doubles producitivity of each individual goes up about 10%. The Gated City was a really good summary of this literature.

> Thankfully, people are growing tired of it, which is one of the reasons why we are seeing the revitalization of the downtown areas, not just in Knoxville.

Coming from Greenville SC, I've seen firsthand how much can be accomplished by forward-thinking leaders coupled with developers who "get it". That general optimism is tempered somewhat by Leigh Gallagher's strong argument for why suburbia will likely transform into the slums of tomorrow. I am certainly more conscious of subtle, but important, facets of neighborhood life--like sidewalks and bike lanes. But I am unclear on how optimistic or pessimistic I should be for residential neighborhoods in the city to turn the corner in the next 10 - 20 years.

Check out the Alonso-Muth-Mills model of the monocentric city. That model, where housing location is endogenous, is the cornerstone of urban econ. This book has a chapter with a good intro.

Glaeser's The Economic Approach to Cities gives good context for the monocentric model.

Next there is the question: Do jobs follow people or do people follow jobs? That article does an overview of the various strains of literature. Here's a meta-analysis of studies on the topic.

That's what I can think of in general. What kind of phenomenon are you looking to model?

Dawn-Breakers is the main Baha'i history book on the Babi Faith (viewed as the predecessor of the Baha'i Faith).

Baha'u'llah: King of Glory covers the period after Dawn-Breakers.

I don't think it's available online but Messiah of Shiraz is a fairly comprehensive book that covers the same period as Dawn-Breakers. The author is relatively antagonistic towards the Faith in his commentary on the events, but the general facts on the sequence of the major events of the Babi religion are more or less sound.

The other issue is that people want abundant parking along with all the benefits that come with density (they are enumerated in this book). But those two contradict each other.

Asking if people want free / abundant parking is like asking voters if they want lower taxes: all will say yes. Then ask, do they want more services? All will say yes. The challenge is reconciling those two.

Lots of people want parking in Seattle but almost no one wants to pay for it.

Tech and the City: The Making of New York's Startup Community is a good book to read.

You thinking more Poor Economics or Why Nations Fail? There's also some good stuff on urbanization's role in development in Triumph of the City which has a lot of implications for developed-world city policy too.

So I think cover three main aspects. Loan processing to get an understanding of the lending side

The Practical Guide to Loan Processing - 2019: Processing in today's digital environment (The Practical Guide to Residential Finance Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1089950640/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_4FOKDb625QAC2

Real estate law to get an understanding of the legal ins and outs and types of title etc

Real Estate Law 10th Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1475484941/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_sIOKDbA5NQTA4

And real estate economics

Urban Economics and Real Estate Markets https://www.amazon.com/dp/0132252449/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_qKOKDb1P045D9


I promise if you read all three you will know as much as someone who has spent 30 years in the business

Sure:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005KGATLO
http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO

> Is any of that a fact?

http://www.amazon.ca/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451419653&sr=8-1&keywords=triumph+of+the+city

Read chapter 1. Compares history of detroit and history of NYC.

Here is the mobile version of your link

O'Sullivan's Urban Economics is a standard undergrad-level textbook that covers the basics of the topic: http://www.amazon.com/Urban-Economics-Arthur-OSullivan/dp/0073511471/

Schwartz's Housing Policy in the US is a standard text for that topic: http://www.amazon.com/Housing-Policy-United-States-Schwartz/dp/0415836506/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

The book that this article is referencing is apparently available here: http://www.amazon.com/Screw-Valley-Coast-Coast-America%C2%92s/dp/1940363306

Just heard about this on NPR... Putin Country

The End of the Suburbs

reed

http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Policy-How-Government-Harms/dp/0813328241

http://www.amazon.com/State-Against-Blacks-Walter-Williams/dp/0070703787/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397755769&sr=1-1&keywords=the+state+against+blacks

http://www.amazon.com/POOR-Negative-affects-government-programs/dp/B000J0IDVO/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397755971&sr=1-2&keywords=the+war+on+the+poor+clarence+carson

http://www.amazon.com/New-Jim-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397755999&sr=1-1&keywords=the+new+jim+crow

http://www.amazon.com/The-Gated-City-Kindle-Single-ebook/dp/B005KGATLO

David Sucher's City Comforts is a must read.

Also, The Spotter's Guide to Urban Engineering and Charles Montgomery's Happy City are very informative.

https://www.amazon.com/Triumph-City-Greatest-Invention-Healthier/dp/0143120549

https://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601

Trickle down economics is bullshit because people hoard wealth. However, no matter how rich you are you're probably only going to live in one unit in any given city. Completely different concepts. We're talking about basic supply and demand.

While I don't agree with all of the arguments in the book, I remember some studies in Triumph of the City. I'd recommend the read.

The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy

I borrowed this from the library a while ago, and it explores similar concepts and ideas. The focus is on larger metro areas, but the concepts can be applied to cities of all sizes.

Here is a secondary source (in portuguese, sorry)
http://www.akatu.org.br/Temas/Mobilidade/Posts/Transportes-sao-responsaveis-por-90-da-poluicao-em-SP

Can't find a primary one...

But anyways, that is dated from 2006. Biggest offenders in atmospheric pollution in big service oriented cities are traffic and heating for winter. source

Since São Paulo's economy is services-oriented and we have a temperate climate without need of serious heating, that isn't a farfetched conclusion.

For the uninitiated... this is how we price you: http://www.amazon.com/Practice-Management-International-Operations-Research/dp/0387243763 Warning - Math required!

Cities are great. Tons of regulations and subsidies they have are terrible. But they decide their own laws and regulations, it would be extreme federal overreach if Trump took any power in this area.

no, because of jobs. a lot of people move here for jobs, and making it difficult for lower income people to move here is going to hurt their chances of climbing the economic ladder.

highly recommend the gated city by Ryan Avent on this.