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Comment by dreamdu5t | Hacker News Reader

Confusing and hypocritical article.

The title asserts that density causes jobs, or somehow leads to better jobs, yet the article goes on to say, "One can’t create wealth just by crowding people together."

This article is all over the place, contradicts itself multiple times, and has no conclusion. It constantly appeals to authority by vague references like "... according to two decades’ worth of research from economists." Never mentioning which economists or what research.

Save yourself 10 minutes. This is all the article says: "Cities have more jobs due to many different factors, some of which are exclusive to cities."

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I found it neither confusing nor hypocritical. My take-away is that with an educated work-force and working market, a city can improve its productivity by allowing density to increase. Cities that don't do this - typically cities with well-heeled citizens who don't want their backyards ruined - will see their competitive advantages eroded.

If the editors and writers of the New York Times had the faintest clue what they were talking about when it came to the topic of creating jobs, we'd long since have been out of the employment hole, what with the green jobs bonanza that we'd be in the middle of, combined with the wonderful fantastic stimulus which had saved us, and the fantastic crop of jobs that government regulation creates by raising costs of doing business under their bizarre economic system. (Under any sane theory of economics, raising transaction costs drops economic activity.) A brief comparison of how their theories say we ought to be doing compared to where we actually are right now ought to establish their credentials on that issue.

And I get the feeling his 'productivity' is measure in dollars - but wages increase in cities due to competition for workers and other factors that don't involve true output.

Thank you for saving me 10 minutes. I'm glad I headed to the comments page before reading the article.

There was a TED talk on the growth of cities and the super-linear-- about O(N^1.1-1.2)-- of negatives like crime and positives like interesting jobs and new inventions: http://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_west_the_surprising_math_o...

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