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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/05/magazine/305glaeser.1.html?ei=5090&en=58a9dac06ddaf7af&ex=1299214800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
March 5, 2006
Theorist
Home Economics
By JON GERTNER
Edward L. Glaeser grew up on the East Side of Manhattan, went to school in Princeton, N.J., and Chicago, lived for a time in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif., and recently moved with his wife and young son to a house on six and a half acres in the affluent suburb of Weston, Mass. To Glaeser, this last move has been a big adjustment. For one thing, he is not a good driver, and the new commute has prompted him to leave his house by 6 a.m. so as not to get ensnared in the morning rush hour. For another, Glaeser and the suburbs are clearly an unholy marriage of sensibilities, especially since his new house is bordered by about 600 acres of conservation land. "I wake up every day, thinking, My goodness, how many units of housing could you build here?" he says. Glaeser is a creature of density. An economist at Harvard, he has spent almost his entire professional life walking around, and thinking about, cities — seeking explanations why some metropolitan areas thrive and some suffer and what factors make some places pricey and some cheap. He is just 38. In the years since earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, though, he has been prolific and provocative in a way that has left many of his colleagues awestruck. "I think he's a genius," says George Akerlof, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2001. Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago and a Nobel laureate, notes that before Glaeser came along, "urban economics was dried up. No one had come up with some new ways to look at cities." David Cutler, Glaeser's Harvard colleague and an academic star in his own right, puts it this way: "I think Ed is probably the most exciting urban researcher in half a century, if not longer."
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March 5, 2006
Theorist
Home Economics
By JON GERTNER
Edward L. Glaeser grew up on the East Side of Manhattan, went to school in Princeton, N.J., and Chicago, lived for a time in Cambridge, Mass., and Palo Alto, Calif., and recently moved with his wife and young son to a house on six and a half acres in the affluent suburb of Weston, Mass. To Glaeser, this last move has been a big adjustment. For one thing, he is not a good driver, and the new commute has prompted him to leave his house by 6 a.m. so as not to get ensnared in the morning rush hour. For another, Glaeser and the suburbs are clearly an unholy marriage of sensibilities, especially since his new house is bordered by about 600 acres of conservation land. "I wake up every day, thinking, My goodness, how many units of housing could you build here?" he says. Glaeser is a creature of density. An economist at Harvard, he has spent almost his entire professional life walking around, and thinking about, cities — seeking explanations why some metropolitan areas thrive and some suffer and what factors make some places pricey and some cheap. He is just 38. In the years since earning his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, though, he has been prolific and provocative in a way that has left many of his colleagues awestruck. "I think he's a genius," says George Akerlof, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2001. Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago and a Nobel laureate, notes that before Glaeser came along, "urban economics was dried up. No one had come up with some new ways to look at cities." David Cutler, Glaeser's Harvard colleague and an academic star in his own right, puts it this way: "I think Ed is probably the most exciting urban researcher in half a century, if not longer."
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