I am currently reading Harvard Economics Professor Edward Glaeser’s masterpiece Triumph of the City, published earlier this year.

I’d recommend it to anyone attending the upcoming Gold Coast Turning Point Summit. It contains very useful advice from the leading international economist working on urban policy issues, including:

…all successful cities do have something in common. To thrive cities must attract smart people and enable them to work collaboratively. There is no such thing as a successful city without human capital.

I especially recommend and concur with the following passage:

Too many officials in troubled cities wrongly imagine that they can lead their city back to its former glories with some massive construction project – a new stadium or light rail system, a convention centre, or a housing project. With very few exceptions, no public policy can stem the tidal forces of urban change.

That’s no reason to be defeatist, but rather suggests that urban planners should, as Dale Carnegie would say, “cooperate with the inevitable.” Gold Coast community leaders should be careful not to over-react to what may only be temporary economic weakness. There are good reasons to be confident about the city’s long-term prospects, as I’ve written here:

Does the Gold Coast need to compete with Vegas and Macau?