Boom towns : restoring the urban American dream / Stephen J. K. Walters.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walters, Stephen John Kasabuski, 1953- author.

Series:

Stanford Economics and Finance

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban policy--United States.

Urban policy.

Urban renewal--United States.

Urban renewal.

Urban economics.

Right of property--Economic aspects--United States.

Right of property.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

American cities, once economic and social launch pads for their residents, are all too often plagued by poverty and decay. One need only to look at the ruins of Detroit to see how far some once-great cities have fallen, or at Boston and San Francisco for evidence that such decline is reversible. In Boom Towns, Stephen J.K. Walters diagnoses the root causes of urban decline in order to prescribe remedies that will enable cities to thrive once again. Arguing that commonplace explanations for urban decay misunderstand the nature of our towns, Walters reconceives of cities as dense accumulations of capital in all of its forms—places that attract people by making their labor more productive and their leisure more pleasurable. Policymakers, therefore, must properly define and enforce property rights in order to prevent the flight of capital and the resulting demise of urban centers. Using vivid evocations of iconic towns and the people who crucially affected their destinies, Walters shows how public policy measures which aim to revitalize often do more harm than good. He then outlines a more promising set of policies to remedy the capital shortage that continues to afflict many cities and needlessly limit their residents' opportunities. With its fresh interpretation of one of the American quandaries of our day, Boom Towns offers a novel contribution to the debate about American cities and a program for their restoration.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface. Even Detroit

Chapter 1. What We’ve Lost—and Why

Chapter 2. Fleeing Robin Hood

Chapter 3. A 1-Percent Solution

Chapter 4. The Conquest of Capital

Chapter 5. A Better Climate

Chapter 6. Things Fall Apart

Chapter 7. Three Simple Rules

Chapter 8. No Little Plans

Chapter 9. Control Freaks

Chapter 10. Reclaiming the Commons

Chapter 11. Boom Commandments

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780804792271

0804792275

OCLC:

888550366