Urbanisation
The move to cities as a driver of property, infrastructure and consumption demand, and the agglomeration economics behind it.
10 books
Start here
- Triumph of the CityEdward L. Glaeser, 2011
- The Death and Life of Great American CitiesJane Jacobs, 1961
- Order Without DesignAlain Bertaud, 2018
Books 10
Jane Jacobs · 1961 · Still the founding text on how urban value is actually created.
Christopher Alexander · 1977 · Design patterns for towns and buildings; the origin of pattern thinking
Edward L. Glaeser · 2011 · The economist's case for density as the engine of productivity.
Jane Jacobs · 1969 · Cities rather than nations as the unit of economic growth.
Enrico Moretti · 2012 · Why a few metropolitan areas capture most of the gains.
T2 Abundance
Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson · 2025 · Why building housing, energy and infrastructure became so hard in America
Peter Laslett · 1965 · Pre-industrial English society before wage labour and cities
T3 Arrival City
Doug Saunders · 2010 · Migration into the world's fastest-growing urban peripheries.
Alain Bertaud · 2018 · An urban planner using land markets rather than master plans.
John R. Stilgoe · 1998 · Reading the built landscape; observation trained as a research habit