Alain Bertaud on EconTalk with Russ Roberts

My guest is urbanist, architect, and author Alain Bertaud…. His book, and the topic for today’s conversation is Order without Design: How Markets Shape Cities…. Your book is about how the economics of bottom-up, emergent order—what you call markets—interact with the top-down administration and regulation of cities around the world. It’s a fabulous introduction to urban economics. And you argue that most urban planners are ignorant of how market forces shape cities. What is that perspective that urban planners have, that is missing, the economic perspective? And, what’s the most important aspect of economics that they ignore?