Alain Bertaud on Cities, Markets, and People
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2019
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Markets, Alain Bertaud likes to say, are like gravity: they exist everywhere. But while urban planners are quite good at taking gravity into account, they tend to ignore market forces entirely in their designs, resulting in city development that too often fails to address the needs of their residents.
Following the release of his recent book, Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities, Alain joined Tyler in New York City for a discussion of the politics affecting urban centers, his advice to Robert Moses, whether the YIMBY movement can win, why he loves messy cities, what he got wrong about Shenzhen, why the Moscow subway is so wonderful, whether cities can move, favorite movies about cities, the region of the world most likely to start a charter city, how to reform the World Bank, his top three NYC planning reforms, why Central Park is the perfect size, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.
Recorded September 9th, 2019
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
| 0:08.3 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. |
| 0:12.5 | Learn more at mercatis.org. |
| 0:15.2 | And for more conversations, including videos, transcripts, and upcoming dates, visit |
| 0:20.4 | ConversationsWithTyler.com. |
| 0:22.4 | I am greatly honored to be here tonight, of course, with all of you, but also with Alan Berto, |
| 0:44.0 | who is one of the world's great urbanists. |
| 0:47.2 | We'll just jump right in. |
| 0:49.6 | If you were to meet a 20-year-old Robert Moses before he set out on his career, what |
| 0:56.3 | would you tell him? |
| 0:58.3 | Ah, this is a difficult question. |
| 1:03.4 | I would tell him infrastructure is important, but infrastructure is there to serve people |
| 1:12.2 | and just look at people before you look at infrastructure. |
| 1:16.7 | Infrastructure is there as a tool, not as a purpose in itself. |
| 1:23.6 | And if you could send the young Mr. Moses, say to Indianapolis, and away from New York City, |
| 1:29.3 | to do his business elsewhere, and he would have a happy life, but New York would proceed |
| 1:33.4 | without him. |
| 1:34.4 | Would you make that choice? |
| 1:36.4 | You mean making the choice for him? |
| 1:38.6 | You can give him a lucrative fellowship at Purdue University. |
| 1:42.4 | And he'll be very busy in Indiana, and New York will go along the track it was on. |
| 1:48.1 | Well, that will be his choice. |
... |
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