[marketcorrection] Don Boudreaux: Jane Jacobs

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Posted by Don Boudreaux:
Jane Jacobs
http://marketcorrection.powerblogs.com/posts/1172516901.shtml


   14 May 2006
   The Editor, The Economist
   25 St James's Street
   London SW1A 1HG
   United Kingdom
   SIR:
   Three sincere - not Bronx! - cheers for your remembrance of Jane
   Jacobs (Obituary, May 13). She was indeed wise. Among my favorites of
   her insights appears in her book Cities and the Wealth of Nations,
   where she observed that national boundaries do not define economic
   boundaries: "Nations are political and military entities, and so are
   blocs of nations. But it doesnât necessarily follow from this that
   they are also the basic, salient entities of economic life or that
   they are particularly useful for probing the mysteries of economic
   structure, the reasons for the rise and decline of wealth."*
   If Ms. Jacobs ever is taken as seriously as she deserves to be taken,
   future generations will look back on our hysteria over national "trade
   imbalances" with the same bemusement that we look back on past
   generations' hysteria over witches, saloons, and rock'n'roll.
   Sincerely,
   Donald J. Boudreaux
   Chairman, Department of Economics
   George Mason University