Jane Jacobs, Economies and Economics

Jane Jacobs, the influential writer on cities, was deeply interested in the workings of the economy, as indicated by her book titles The Economy of Cities (1969), Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), and The Nature of Economies (2000). Despite her wariness of academic economics, several mainstream economic theorists acclaimed aspects of her work, notably her emphasis on agglomeration economies. Other economists were (much) less receptive to a self-taught interloper. We explore Jacobs's developing understanding of how economies of cities function and evolve, her views of academic economics, and reactions of academic economists to her work.