Cobb, Clifford W. “Toward an Economics of Sustainable Urbanization.”  Seeking Truth 33, no. 4 (July, 2006): 58-61.

Abstract

A city is constituted by the interaction of people. The physical structures of a city guide those interactions, but the structure themselves are not the city. People and their relationship are the elements that define a city.

The study of economics is a study of one aspect of those relationship. Rather than thinking about economics in terms of money or material goods, it should be understood as the study of how people balance competing values through exchange. An economic system works if it allows people to realize value through exchange.