Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs died yesterday. She is the author of the book which I found most influential when I was in college. "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" was actually a libertarian polemic against central urban planning. Here is a quotation by her from the Washington Post's obituary and in parenthesis I will indicate how Mrs. Jacob's arguments apply to much more then buildings and parks:
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"The planner's (liberals) greatest shortcoming, I think, is lack of intellectual curiosity about how cities (markets) work," she told the New York Times in 1969. "They are taught to see the intricacy of cities (markets) as mere disorder. Since most of them believe what they have been taught, they do not inquire about the processes that lie behind the intricacy. I doubt that knowledgeable city planning (liberal public policy programs) will come out of the present profession. It is more likely to arise as an offshoot of economics (free-market economics)."I wonder if Frederick Hayek ever read her?
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