Urban Supremacy by Spencer

Urban Supremacy by Spencer - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

Growing up on Long Island, I have always enjoyed the benefits that came with living in the suburbs. Living in a house, rather than a tiny apartment, and being able to play in a backyard, rather than on city streets, are a few of the benefits that come to mind. Furthermore, there is an implied belief in society that suburban life provides the greatest quality of life compared to any other living environment. Cue, “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds. Typically, suburbs are seen as a warm and welcoming place for the middle class to raise families. A beautiful landscape, with hills, trees, homes, and happy people. The alternative being city living; where the streets are covered in filth, there are few trees in sight, and crime and poverty are rampant. The ugliness of city living has always been an unspoken conjecture by most people. However, these conjectures may very well be based on misinformation.

After graduating Lehigh University in 2014, I began my career in commercial real estate finance at a bank in New York City. However, the ambition I was looking for in my career wasn’t found there and I left the bank in 2016 without much of a plan. I knew that real estate was in my future, but did not know how. I began reading anything and everything I could find about real estate, and discovered that I had an interest in real estate development. In the summer of 2016, I enrolled in a non-credit course at New York University in real estate and overheard one of the other students boasting about a book they recently read, Edward Glaeser’s Triumph of the City (2011).

I took a leap of faith and bought the book without much knowledge of it, but came to thoroughly enjoy its content. Written by a Manhattan native, who is now an economics professor at Harvard University, Triumph of the City examines urban life around the world. Citing statistics and historical evidence from many urban metropolises including London, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, and Detroit, Edward Glaeser argues that the city is humanities greatest invention. This book gives illustrative examples of how cities are epicenters for fostering innovation, creating environmental betterment and building economic prosperity.

This book has most influenced my life because it has reignited by passion for commercial real estate and urban development. While I previously believed that cities were problematic, I now understand the importance of their existence. After reading this book, I decided to apply to NYU Schack Institute to pursue a Masters in Real Estate Development with a concentration in sustainable development. I have recently been accepted into the program and have enrolled for the summer term. If I hadn’t taken the time to read Triumph of the City, I am unsure where I would be today.