* Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York: Vintage, 1961.
A classic in urban studies. In terms of this list the most important element in her book mis her discussion of urban neighborhoods as complex social networks in continual flux, but which when allowed to develop on their own perform important order and prosperity encouraging functions without the intervention of outside authority.
* Jacobs, Jane. Cities and the Wealth of Nations, New York: Random House, 1984. 244 pp.
Jacobs argues the city is basic unit of social and economic organization growing from peaceful interaction. They are usually parasitized by nation states and earlier large political forms. Yet import replacing cities are, Jacobs argues, the basic wealth creating units within a nation. The result is a contradiction between the exigencies of national politics and its dependency on cities as wealth creators. The solution Jacobs argues for is the “multiplication of sovereignties” by natural division. (214-5) A powerful and fascinating application of emergent order thinking by one of its most innovative pioneers.
Titles not yet annotated:
Ostrom, Vincent, Charles M. Tiebout, and Robert Warren. The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry, in Vincent Ostrom, The Meaning of American Federalism: Constituting a Self-Governing Society. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1991. pp. 137-161.
Ostrom, Vincent, Robert Bish, and Elinor Ostrom. Local Government in the United States, San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press, 1988. 244 pp.
Studies in Emergent Order 