The New Geography Of Jobs
Description: The New Geography Of Jobs analyzes the shifting distribution of employment, population, and economic growth across American cities, focusing on the role of innovation in regional success and future trends
ISBN: 9780544028050
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davidw
· 2014-09-09
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Original thread
There's a great book exploring this: The New Geography of Jobs
http://www.amazon.com/The-Geography-Jobs-Enrico-Moretti/dp/0...
He talks about why things have not gone 'flat'.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna
I suppose that compared to Tokyo, most anything could be considered a small town, but in Italy, Bologna isn't.
Quibbling about details aside, I think your point is a good one, although I also believe there are definitely two sides to it. The case made in this book is convincing that cities are a lot better for the sort of "spontaneous idea contamination" that can lead to big things:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Geography-Jobs-Enrico-Moretti/dp/0...
Things get even more complicated when families come into the picture: a beach town in Morocco is not my own idea of the place I'd like to live with mine, although I certainly wouldn't mind an extended vacation there.
There are a lot of things I don't care for about my hometown in Oregon (THE WEATHER!), but I do find that I'm pretty partial to the mid-sized (which for me is something like 100K-400K, depending on various factors) university town like that where I grew up. I like being able to chat with people about programming over drinks from time to time, or talk about business, or have a variety of local businesses. On the other hand, with a family and not wanting to work for a BigCo, I'm not really interested in big cities any more.