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Edward Glaeser - Cities, Terrorism, Housing, & Remote Work

Edward Glaeser is the chair of the Harvard department of economics, and the author of the best books and papers about cities (including Survival of the City and Triumph of the City). He explains why: - Cities are resilient to terrorism, remote work, & pandemics, - Silicon Valley may collapse but the Sunbelt will prosper, - Opioids show UBI is not a solution to AI - & much more! Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gEGYkf Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3XwfnlI Episode Website + Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/edward-glaeser Follow me for updates on future episodes: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp Timestamps: 0:00:00 Intro 0:00:40 Mars, Terrorism, & Capitals 0:07:12 Decline, Population Collapse, & Young Men 0:15:24 Urban Education 0:19:15 Georgism, Robert Moses, & Too Much Democracy? 0:26:09 Opioids, Automation, & UBI 0:30:37 Remote Work, Taxation, & Metaverse 0:43:09 Past & Future of Silicon Valley 0:48:59 Housing Reform 0:52:47 Europe’s Stagnation, Mumbai’s Safety, & Climate Change

Edward GlaeserguestDwarkesh Patelhost
Nov 27, 202257mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Edward Glaeser on cities: resilience, housing, remote work, and decline

  1. Edward Glaeser discusses how cities form, adapt, and sometimes decline, emphasizing the roles of transportation costs, housing markets, institutions, and local politics. He argues that cities are both targets and fortresses against terrorism, and explains why many Western capitals are less dominant than historic city-empires like Rome or Paris.
  2. A major focus is on housing constraints, reduced geographic mobility, and the growing problem of prime-age male non-employment, which he ties to both housing regulation and place-based informal safety nets. He is broadly pro-urban, pro-immigration, and pro-building, skeptical of over-localized veto power, and supportive of tools like land value taxation without treating them as panaceas.
  3. Glaeser also assesses remote work, the metaverse, and tech hubs like Silicon Valley, arguing that face-to-face interaction will remain central to innovation even as digital tools expand, and he highlights emerging Sunbelt cities as promising startup locations.
  4. He closes by stressing the unresolved challenge of protecting rapidly growing, low-lying cities in the developing world from climate-related risks.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Cities must be planned flexibly and allowed to evolve organically.

Glaeser advises that even on Mars, the best approach is a simple, flexible grid and limited top-down micromanagement, letting entrepreneurs and individual initiative determine land use over time.

Concentrated cities are both attractive targets and easier to defend.

Post‑9/11, cities like New York and London invested heavily in security infrastructure (e.g., surveillance, dedicated anti-terror units), illustrating that dense urbanization increases symbolic risk but also makes collective defense more effective.

Housing regulation and informal safety nets are freezing Americans in place.

Rising housing costs in opportunity-rich regions and place-bound family support (e.g., non-employed men living with parents) reduce migration from distressed areas to booming ones, worsening geographic inequality and non-employment.

Local monopolies and political dynamics undermine urban K–12 schooling.

Unlike highly competitive urban universities, big-city public school systems are often local monopolies where politically powerful teachers’ unions and fragmented, overburdened parents weaken accountability and performance.

Land value taxes are efficient but not a cure-all.

Taxing land instead of structures avoids discouraging new construction and can improve urban development, but it cannot realistically replace all other taxes or single-handedly solve inequality and fiscal needs.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Cities are always shaped by the transportation costs that are dominant in the era in which they're created.

— Edward Glaeser

We have evolved to be an in-person species not just because we're productive and learn a lot face-to-face, but also because we just like it.

— Edward Glaeser

I don't know any economist who doesn't think that a land value tax is an attractive idea… A good idea, yes. A panacea, no.

— Edward Glaeser

When you look at human misery and opioid use…the difference between low-income earners and the jobless—unhappiness spikes enormously.

— Edward Glaeser

The largest unsolved problem in cities is what the heck we're gonna do about climate change and the cities of the developing world.

— Edward Glaeser

Urban formation, transportation costs, and the evolution of city structure (including hypothetical Martian cities)Terrorism, security, and the resilience/defensibility of modern cities since 9/11Urban decline, housing markets, geographic mobility, and prime-age male non-employmentEducation, unions, and the performance gap between urban K–12 schools and universitiesHousing policy, zoning, land value taxation, and local vs state/federal authorityRemote work, information technology, and the future of face-to-face interaction and startupsGlobal urban challenges: opioids, slums, immigration scale, and climate risk to developing-world cities

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