Socialist Cities - Where in a Market Economy, the Planners Were Slowing Down the Transformation

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In a market city, developers realize that the land is expensive and therefore they can build more. If you are in a socialist country, like China before the reform or Russia at the time I were in the early 90s, you need the initiative of a planner to say we are going to build something new here. They will have to compensate not the owner but the user to move them somewhere else. So to the states, this is a net cash expenditure. To replace a low building by high building is a cash expenditure that the city has to pay. The system is reversed. In the market economy, the planners were slowing down the transformation where in a socialist economy,. the planners realize that it

Markets, Alain Bertaud likes to say, are like gravity: they exist everywhere. But while urban planners are quite good at taking gravity into account, they tend to ignore market forces entirely in their designs, resulting in city development that too often fails to address the needs of their residents.

Following the release of his recent book, Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities, Alain joined Tyler in New York City for a discussion of the politics affecting urban centers, his advice to Robert Moses, whether the YIMBY movement can win, why he loves messy cities, what he got wrong about Shenzhen, why the Moscow subway is so wonderful, whether cities can move, favorite movies about cities, the region of the world most likely to start a charter city, how to reform the World Bank, his top three NYC planning reforms, why Central Park is the perfect size, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded September 9th, 2019 Other ways to connect

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