Alain Bertaud

Alain Bertaud is one of the world's great urbanists. He straddles the world of urban economics and urban planning―and draws forth the best of both fields. This book is a fascinating tour-de-force of clear thinking and real-world experience. Like Alain, it is wise, witty, and deeply insightful. Anyone who cares about cities throughout the world should read this book and grapple with Alain's incisive intellect.

―Edward Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Harvard University; author of Triumph of the City

Samuel Staley

Jun 4 2019 at 4:18pm

A brilliant book by one of the most astute urbanists today. I’ve been following his work for years, and Bertaud does a first-rate job of pulling incredibly important insights from Hayek into cities and their growth. But the value is his practical, field approach to putting these theories into the right economic context. Rather than link to his working papers, I can finally assign his book in urban economics and land-use classes! I will also assign this podcast!

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Amazon June 30, 2019: Outstanding book!

Bertaud knows cities inside out. It is a pleasure to read something by a person who knows his subject in so much depth. He reveals how planning can mess up cities, how the market is more intelligent than planners, etc.

Aside from the potent Hayekian argument, Bertaud gave me some intuition for future real estate investments: a city is a labor market since people change jobs and companies add and subtract employees. Any form of planning needs to accommodate such a fact. And if cities are principally labor markets, they should both concentrate and differentiate along with globalization.