Reading for Life: One of the Best Books Ever Written About Cities

After a far too long hiatus, “Reading for Life” is back. The hiatus did not occur because there are no more worthy books. Far from it, book-lovers face an embarrassment of riches. We kick off the revival with a very special volume, Alain Bertaud’s Order Without Design.

Order Without Design is one of the most important books ever written about cities.  Acclaimed planner-architect-urbanist Alain Bertaud distills lessons from more than half a century of practical and analytical work in dozens of cities ranging from New York and Paris, to Sana’a and Port-au-Prince.  Transport, land and housing, labor markets, urban form, and the proper role of urban planning are all covered concisely, yet in amazing depth.  Rigorous yet eminently readable, the book is a lively demonstration of the gains from trade between planners and economists.

That's not just my opinion.  Harvard's Ed Glaeser, one of the most productive and thoughtful urban scholars of our time, remarks:

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.

Full disclosure: I've done a little work with my good friend and former World Bank colleague, from whom I've learned an enormous amount regarding land use, regulation, and the functioning of cities.

For some years Alain has been working on this book-length treatment of his work, and it has finally been published by MIT Press.  "Order Without Design" is must reading for anyone interested in cities or land use or transport or regulation.  Details here, from the Press.

"Reading for Life" is about, well reading; and specifically, books.  But maybe you need to ease into it?  Fortunately, there have been a number of videos, reviews, and podcasts recently about Alain's work.  Here's a selection:

• Recently Alain was interviewed by Paul Romer (2018 Nobel Laureate in economics, along with Bill Nordhaus).  You can see the interview here.
• Russ Roberts does very interesting podcasts about economics and related fields; here's his interview with Alain.
• Tyler Cowen is maybe my favorite podcaster these days.  See his interview with Alain here.
• Other informative reviews can be found by Nolan Gray at City Journal, Anthony Ling at Market Urbanism, Wendell Cox at New Geography, Jason Barr at Building the Skyline, Michael Lewyn at Planetizen, Sam Dumitriu at CapX.

Alain Bertaud, urbaniste extraordinaire

Alain's name has come up in this blog before.  He and I collaborated, with Larry Hannah and the late Steve Mayo, on the "Malaysia Model" for housing policy analysis, detailed in Getting The Incentives Right.

Some readers may have seen some of my slides on density, urban form and related land use issues; much of this draws heavily on what Alain has taught me over the years.  (And more than a few of my classroom slides have been kindly provided by Alain).  Download here.  Feel free to use any of these slides in your own classes, should you wish to.

Another classic work, earlier in his career, is a model of site planning he developed and applied in a number of countries, including India, along with his wife Marie-Agnes Bertaud, and Jim Wright (a World Bank urban economist who had substantial influence on both Alain and myself early in our respective careers).  The basic reference is Efficiency in land use and infrastructure design : an application of the Bertaud model 

Marie-Agnes Bertaud is an accomplished urbanist in her own right, known for her research on GIS and satellite imagery to urban analysis, as well as to many contributions to the book, as Alain notes.

UPDATE: Recently urban blogger Devon Zuegel interviewed Alain and Marie-Agnes in a fascinating three-part interview.  The interviews cover a lot of substantive ground, but they are a special treat because the Bertauds also tell us a lot of fascinating personal detail about their life analyzing and improving cities, while raising a family in a wide range of environments.  You can find the podcasts here.  When you click on each of the 3 podcasts (and a separate brief introduction) you can also find a transcript of the discussion, as well as some great photos.

Devon Zuegel, Marie-Agnes and Alain Bertaud

When listening to one of the podcasts, I recommend you open it in your usual podcast environment like Apple or Spotify; if you click on the podcast directly on Devon's webpage, it will play but you don't have much control if you want to replay something, or open up later and start in the middle.

Updated update: Alain was recently interviewed by the Startup Societies Foundation.

Finally, get the book.  Read it.  Know it. Live it.  And once you've been through it a few times, you can find a wealth of presentations and papers about specific countries and cities at Alain's website, here.