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> … cities … lower "neighborly" sentiment which is required for collaboration I've found this to be the opposite in comparing cities to suburbs. If you're ref

• alexqgb 12y ago
  The point Jane Jacobs makes about innovation and cities is that old buildings are essential. Basically, you need clusters of places with cheap rent. If all the real estate is new and shiny and impressive and nice, it's only going to be available to businesses that are already firing on all cylinders. And that's great for them, for a while. But the other point she makes is that nothing lasts forever. The conditions that make a business work will eventually change, and in most cases, the kinds of business that worked well at one time won't be able to adapt to another. They'll just go away. If the city in which this constant drama is playing out has a decent stock of old buildings, there's a good chance that there will be another generation of businesses that are better attuned to the times who are ready to move into the high-rent districts. But if a city falls prey to short-term thinking and allows all its cheap neighborhoods to be gobbled up by rapacious developers, it's going to find itself driving off a cliff in terms of long range economic viability. In agricultural terms, getting rid of cheap rents is like eating your seed stock. In more vivid terms, it's like setting your house on fire to stay warm in the winter.