城市變遷的經濟啓示 What cities tell us about the economy

The economic indicators that surround us are familiar, as are the criticisms they attract. The consumer prices index doesn’t fully capture the boon of new products; unemployment figures do not count workers who have given up the job hunt in despair; gross domestic product (GDP) includes bad things if they have a market price, and excludes good things if they don’t.

我們熟悉身邊的種種經濟指標，也熟悉它們所招致的各種批評。居民消費價格指數(CPI)並不能完全反映新產品帶來的好處；失業率數據並不統計那些因絕望已放棄找工作的人；國內生產總值(GDP)會包括那些有市場價的糟糕事物，而不包括那些沒有市場價的好東西。

But there is one fundamental flaw in all these statistics that is rarely discussed: they are almost always applied to countries. It is not impossible to find educated guesses about the GDP of Cambridge, or the inflation rate in Mumbai, and there is nothing conceptually troubling about trying to calculate either. Yet most economic statistics describe the nation state.

不過，在所有這些統計過程中，有一個根本缺陷我們很少討論到：所有這些指標幾乎總是隻適用於國家。對劍橋市的GDP或孟買的通脹率進行有根據的猜測並非不可能，試圖計算這兩項數據在理念上也沒有任何問題。然而，多數經濟統計數據描述的卻是整個國家。

This is odd, because the nation state is a political unit, not an economic one. Policy does influence the economy, of course — national authorities can impose a common interest rate, tax rates and regulations. But, as the unorthodox thinker and writer Jane Jacobs used to argue, the natural unit of macroeconomic analysis is not a nation state at all. It is a city and its surrounding region.

這一點很奇怪，因爲國家是個政治單位，不是經濟單位。當然，政策確實會影響經濟——國家當局能夠實施統一的利率、稅率和監管規定。然而，正如非正統思想家和作家簡雅各布斯(Jane Jacobs)過去一直主張的，宏觀經濟分析的天然單位絕不是整個國家，而是一座城市及其周邊地區。

Aberdeen, Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester are subject to some similarities by virtue of their shared participation in something we call “the British economy” but economically they are quite different. Their relative fortunes fluctuate because they are pushed and pulled by different forces.

由於都參與了所謂的“英國經濟”，阿伯丁、卡迪夫、格拉斯哥和曼徹斯特存在一些共同之處。然而，從經濟角度而言它們非常不同。它們的相對財富狀況會上下波動，因爲它們被不同的因素推動向前和拖後腿。

In her book Cities and the Wealth of Nations , Jacobs zooms in still further, looking at “Shinohata”, a pseudonymous Japanese hamlet a hundred miles north-west of Tokyo. (She relies on a rich description of Shinohata by sociologist Ronald Dore.) Shinohata was initially a subsistence economy, supplemented by woodland foraging and a little silk farming. In the 20th century, the villagers gained some time thanks to improved agricultural techniques, and they used it to produce more silk cocoons. After the war, Tokyo’s expansion pulled Shinohata into its economic orbit. The booming Japanese capital became a market for Shinohata’s fresh fruit and wild oak mushrooms; Tokyo’s government paid for bridges and roads; its capitalists built a factory; its labour market lured young men and women from their village existence. The tale is intricate and unpredictable; Japan’s economic miracle, as recorded in the national statistics, was actually the sum of countless unrecorded stories of local development.

在雅各布斯的《城市與國家財富》(Cities and the Wealth of Nations)一書中，她的視線進一步拉近，落在了位於東京西北一百英里一個化名“蓧原”(Shinohata)的日本小村莊。（她的書依賴於社會學家羅納德多爾(Ronald Dore)對蓧原的詳細描述。）起初，蓧原的經濟爲自給自足型，以森林裏的採集活動以及少量養蠶爲補充。20世紀，由於農業技術的提高，村民們有了一定的富餘時間，他們用這些時間生產更多蠶繭。戰後，東京的擴張將蓧原拉入了它的經濟軌道。急速發展的日本首都爲蓧原的新鮮水果和野生香菇提供了市場；東京政府出資修建了橋樑和道路；東京的資本家則開辦了工廠；東京的就業市場吸引青年男女擺脫農村生活方式。整個故事錯綜複雜而又不可預測；而以國家爲單位的統計數據所記錄到的日本經濟奇蹟，實際上是無數個沒有記錄下來的地方發展故事的總和。

Jacobs is not the only person to argue that economic development may be profitably studied through a magnifying glass. A new research paper from three development economists, William Easterly, Laura Freschi and Steven Pennings, offers “A Long history of a Short Block” — a Shinohata-style tale of the economic development of a single 486ft block of Greene Street, between Houston and Prince Street in downtown Manhattan.

認爲通過觀察經濟局部的細微之處來研究經濟發展或能取得豐碩成果的不只是雅各布斯一個人。三名發展經濟學家威廉伊斯特利(William Easterly)、勞拉弗雷斯基(Laura Freschi)和史蒂文洠腟斯(Steven Pennings)，在新發表的一篇研究論文中，展示了“一個小街區的漫長曆史”(A Long History of a Short Block)，即關於一個486英尺長的街區的蓧原式故事。該街區位於格林尼街上，在曼哈頓下城的休斯頓街和王子街之間。

Easterly, a former World Bank researcher, is well known in development circles for his scepticism about how much development can ever be planned, and how much credit political leaders and their expert advisers deserve when things go well.

在發展經濟學圈內，曾在世行(WB)任研究員的伊斯特利以對兩個問題的質疑而聞名，一個是人們能在多大程度上“規劃”發展，另一個是良好的發展應在多大程度上歸功於政界領袖及其專家顧問。

“Here’s a block where there is no leader; there’s no president or prime minister of this block,” he explained to me. Greene Street, he suggests, offers us a perspective on the more spontaneous, decentralised features of economic development.

他向我解釋說：“這是個沒有領導的街區。它沒有總統或總理。”他認爲，格林尼街爲我們提供了一個視角，從它身上可以觀察到經濟發展更具自發性和分散性的一些特點。

Greene Street’s history certainly offers plenty of rapid and surprising changes to observe. The Dutch, who had colonised Manhattan in 1624, decided in 1667 to cede what is now New York to the British, in exchange for guarantees over their possession of what is now Suriname in Latin America. The Dutch thought sugar-rich Suriname was a better bet but New York City’s economy is now more than a hundred times larger than Suriname’s.

格林尼街的歷史確實提供了足夠多迅速而令人吃驚的變化，可供人們觀察。1624年殖民了曼哈頓的荷蘭人，在1667年決定，將如今的紐約出讓給英國，以換取後者保證讓他們佔有現在的拉美蘇裏南地區。荷蘭人當時認爲，盛產蔗糖的蘇里南發展前景更好。然而，如今紐約的經濟規模是蘇里南的百倍以上。

In 1850, Greene Street was a prosperous residential district with several households who would be multimillionaires in today’s terms. Two large hotels and a theatre opened nearby, and prostitutes started to move in. By 1870, the middle classes had fled and the block was at the heart of one of New York City’s largest sex-work districts.

1850年，格林尼街是一個富人區，當時居住在那裏的幾戶人家相當於今天的百萬富翁。後來，附近開了兩家大酒店和一家劇院，妓女開始遷入這個街區。到1870年，中產階級已逃離這個街區，該街區也成爲紐約最大性交易區的核心地帶。

In the late 19th century, perhaps because Property values in the red-light area were low, entrepreneurs swooped in to build large cast-iron stores and warehouses for the garment trade. Greene Street’s fortunes waned when the industry moved uptown after 1910, and property values collapsed. In the 1940s and 1950s, urban planners suggested bulldozing the lot and starting again but a community campaign — famously involving Jacobs herself — fought them off. Property values were revived as artists colonised Greene Street in the 1950s and 1960s, attracted by the large, airy and cheap spaces. None of these changes could easily have been predicted; some are rather mysterious even in retrospect.

到了19世紀末，也許是因爲紅燈區房價低，衆多企業家涌入該街區，蓋起了一些鑄鐵結構的大型商店和倉庫，從事服裝生意。1910年後，隨着該產業遷往上城，格林尼街的命運轉衰，房價一落千丈。上世紀四五十年代，城市規劃機構曾建議將該街區推平，然後重新開發，然而一場社區運動阻止了他們這樣做——衆所周知，雅各布斯本人就參與了這場運動。上世紀五六十年代，諸多藝術家被格林尼街空曠、通風而廉價的空間吸引而遷入，這裏的房價復甦了。所有這些變化都無法輕易地預測到。即便是回過頭來看，有些變化當初爲何會發生也是個迷。

The lessons of Greene Street? Getting the basic infrastructure right — streets, water, sanitation, policing — is a good idea. Aggressive planning, knocking down entire blocks in response to temporary weakness, is probably not. Predicting the process of economic development at a local level is a game for suckers. Most importantly, even a tremendous development success — the United States and, within it, New York City — is going to show some deep wrinkles to those who get in close.

格林尼街告訴了我們什麼呢？建好基本的基礎設施——街道、供水、衛生系統、治安體系——是個不錯的主意。而在街區暫時發展得不好時，採取激進的規劃、夷平整個街區，則很可能不是個好主意。只有傻子纔會去預測某個地方的經濟發展進程。最重要的一點是，近距離觀察下，即使是發展奇蹟的典範（比如美國以及美國的紐約市），也會顯露出一些深深的皺紋。