Jason M. Barr is an American economist and author, at
Rutgers University-Newark, whose work is in the field of “skynomics,” the study of skyscrapers and skylines using modern economics methods. He is the author of ''Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers'' which chronicled the history of the
Manhattan skyline from an economic perspective. Barr earned his B.S. from
Cornell University in 1992, his M.F.A. in creative writing from
Emerson College
Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and Well, Limburg, Netherlands ( Kasteel Well). Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a ...
in 1995 and his Ph.D. in economics from
Columbia University in 2002.
Barr's work has addressed widely held myths or misconceptions about skyscrapers and cities. For example, research performed by Barr and his colleagues showed that there was no evidence for the
Skyscraper Curse, that the completion of the world's tallest building is a herald of an economic crisis. Barr has also debunked the misconception that Manhattan's geological conditions have been the reason there are few skyscrapers between lower
Manhattan and
Midtown. Rather, Barr's work demonstrates that
Midtown's origin was due to the city's demographic evolution and the fact that Manhattan is a long, but narrow, island that concentrated economic activity to a much greater degree, as compared to other cities. Barr is an advocate of land reclamation projects such as those seen in Hong Kong, the Netherlands. On January 14, 2022 Barr wrote an opinion article in the New York Times
which proposed the expansion of Manhattan Island. This "
New Mannahatta" project proposal was met with criticism from readers despite the project being quite similar to other already completed projects around the world.
Books
* Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan's Skyscrapers.
Oxford University Press, 2016.
* Economic Drivers: Skyscrapers in China.
Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, 2017. .
References
External links
Building the Skyline - The Birth & Growth of Manhattan's SkyscrapersBuilding the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan's SkyscrapersManhattan Skyline , C-SPAN.orgSkynomics Blog
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Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American economists
American economics writers