A City Cannot Be a Work of Art. Learning Economics and Social Theory From Jane Jacobs

By: Prof. Emeritus Sanford Ikeda (SUNY – The State University of New York)

Summary: Jane Jacobs is a legend in the field of urbanism and is famous for challenging and profoundly influencing urban planning and design.  But there is much we can and should learn from Jacobs’s contributions to economics and social theory, which are central to her criticisms of and proposals for public policy, but frequently overlooked even by her most enthusiastic admirers.  Jacobs’s insight that “a city cannot be a work of art” underlies both her ideas on planning and her understanding of economic development and social cooperation.  Her contributions to these areas are fundamental and game-changing

Speaker: Sanford Ikeda, Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York, Purchase College, is an expert on the economy of cities. Besides “A City Cannot Be a Work of Art: Learning Economics and Social Theory From Jane Jacobs” (2024), he is the author of “Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism” (1997) and several articles in the Journal of Economics and Humane Studies, American Journal of Economics & Sociology, Cosmos + Taxis, the Review of Austrian Economics, the Independent Review, Forbes, and others.

Key information:

Date: Friday, July 5

Time: 10:00

Book link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-5362-2

Place: Chair and Institute for Urban Design, SG301, Wüllnerstr. 5b, 52062 Aachen

Organisers: Stefano Cozzolino, Fabio Bayro Kaiser