Ep. 110: Survival of the City with Edward Glaeser and David Cutler

Talking Beats with Daniel Lelchuk

"Not only was our healthcare system failing us in its job of keeping us healthy for as little dollar and resource costs as possible, now we know it's also failing in its ability to keep us safe from pandemic."

Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and David Cutler join the show for a discussion centered around their new book Survival of the City: Living and Thriving in an Age of Isolation. The two argue that while city life will survive, individual cities face major risks. What happens when offices don’t fill back up? How comfortable are companies with employees working from home? What will distinguish between cities that flourish and those that do not? Also addressed: the major inequities in healthcare and our deeply flawed health system, and how in a city, just like the world, our health is all interconnected.

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Edward Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the Chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught microeconomic theory, and occasionally urban and public economics, since 1992. He has served as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He has published dozens of papers on cities economic growth, law, and economics. In particular, his work has focused on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1992.

David Cutler has developed an impressive record of achievement in both academia and the public sector. He served as Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University from 1991 to 1995, was named John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Social Sciences in 1995, and received tenure in 1997. He is currently the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics and was named Harvard College Professor in 2014 until 2019. Professor Cutler holds secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. Professor Cutler was associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for Social Sciences from 2003-2008.