San Francisco’s Detroit Moment

Like Detroit in 1960, the wages are too damn high in San Francisco at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic convergence of Innovation Economy.

Subject Article: "How Silicon Valley’s most celebrated CEOs conspired to drive down 100,000 tech engineers’ wages."

Other Links: 1. "LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: SOME CITIES DEVELOP MORE THAN OTHERS: SPECIALIZATION, HUMAN CAPITAL, AND INSTITUTIONS."
2. "WHY I’M MOVING MY BUSINESS FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO ST. LOUIS."
3. "Silicon Valley 2014 economic forecast: Talent crunch, M&A uptick, development sprawl."
4. "Guerrilla Geographies of Artisanal Toast."
5. "The AOL Of China To Build A Suburban Tech Campus In The Sky."

Postscript: Evidence of the decline of the Innovation Economy starts with talent arbitrage. Where can a tech firm find cheaper workers? Clear to me now that we are on the other side of that inflection point:

Jennifer Kelly used to take refuge in her $1,750-a-month, two-bedroom downtown Campbell home.

The former tech sales manager, who made up to $180,000 a year working at startups during the last decade, had a routine of working out on her home Stairmaster or taking joy rides in her sports car to relax after 14-hour workdays.

Now Kelly, who didn’t want her real name used in this story, is stringing together short-term contract work and sleeping in an aging SUV that she parks on a rotating slate of dead-end streets in Silicon Valley.

“Professionally, I’m at director level,” she said. “I had a safety net.”

Two neurosurgeries and a layoff, exacerbated by rising housing costs, have made Kelly, 51, a personification of Silicon Valley’s affordable housing crisis. The region’s high cost of housing affects residents at all pay grades with varying degrees of severity. It also hamstrings employers looking to lure talent to one of the country’s most expensive real estate markets.

Silicon Valley's regional economy is imploding, collapsing under the weight of its own success. Detroit suffered the same fate, but during a different economic epoch. I honestly don't think the Detroit comparison is hyperbole.

Guerrilla Geographies of Artisanal Toast

Gentrification of urban industrial food space at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Globalization and urban geography.

Subject Article: "Foodie frenzy helps push up San Francisco industrial values."

Other Links: 1. "A Toast Story."
2. "Buns, Germs and Steel."
3. "Gentrification of Work in the City."
4. "Rebecca Solnit: Resisting Monoculture."

Postscript: Much more going on in the story by John Gravois than paying $4 for artisanal toast in San Francisco. The source of the trend, Trouble, reveals the social technologies underwriting a global labor market. Bowling with strangers:

If Trouble’s toast itself made instant sense to me, it was less clear how a willfully obscure coffee shop with barely any indoor seating in a cold, inconvenient neighborhood could have been such a successful launch pad for a food trend. In some ways, the shop seemed to make itself downright difficult to like: It serves no decaf, no non-fat milk, no large drinks, and no espressos to go. On Yelp, several reviewers report having been scolded by baristas for trying to take pictures inside the shop with their phones. (“I better not see that up on Instagram!” one reportedly shouted.)

Nevertheless, most people really seem to love Trouble. On my second visit to the shop, there was a steady line of customers out the door. After receiving their orders, they clustered outside to drink their coffees and eat their toast. With no tables and chairs to allow them to pair off, they looked more like neighbors at a block party than customers at a café. And perhaps most remarkably for San Francisco, none of them had their phones out. ...

... At first, Carrelli explained Trouble as a kind of sociological experiment in engineering spontaneous communication between strangers. She even conducted field research, she says, before opening the shop. “I did a study in New York and San Francisco, standing on the street holding a sandwich, saying hello to people. No one would talk to me. But if I stayed at that same street corner and I was holding a coconut? People would engage,” she said. “I wrote down exactly how many people talked to me.”

Greater density won't catalyze innovation unless you have a coconut.

The White Flight Myth

Save the place, kill the people at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Migration theory and urban planning.

Subject Article: "White Flight in England? White attraction rather than repulsion seems to be the story."

Other Links: 1. "Mapping 60 Years of White Flight, Brain Drain and American Migration."
2. "Migration as a Strategy for Household Finance: A Research Agenda on Remittances, Payments, and Development."

Postscript: There exists an overtly stated link between quality of the built environment and migration. Walkable, dense, and diverse development will prevent people from leaving. This perspective is at odds with migration scholarship.Speaking from professional firsthand experience, urban planners and developers are ignorant of the migration patterns in their own backyard. This is a grave oversight that results in lousy policy. Well-intended efforts end up as boondoggles, perhaps making things worse instead of better.

Walkability Boondoggle

People follow jobs, not sidewalks at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: People follow jobs debate.

Subject Article: "Homes a Short Walk From Princeton Prove a Tough Sell."

Other Links: 1. "How to create a creative city? The viewpoints of Richard Florida and Jane Jacobs."
2. "Walk this Way:The Economic Promise of Walkable Places in Metropolitan Washington, D.C."
3. "These Are The Cities Where People Walk The Most."

Postscript: Shout out to my editor who came up with the snappy line, "People follow jobs, not sidewalks." I'm jealous I didn't think of it first. I'm surprised at the reaction to this post. Then again, posts I write to provoke usually end up as duds. I touched a nerve. Interesting. Is it more the walkability issue or critically unpacking Jane Jacobs?

Higher Education Is Dying

The Pittsburgh eds and meds industry has its Ph.D. in sabermetric demographics at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Ironic demographics.

Subject Article: "Demographic Data Let Colleges Peer Into the Future."

Other Links: 1. "Replay: Is College Worth It?"
2. "Peter Thiel: We're in a Bubble and It's Not the Internet. It's Higher Education."
3. "Peter Thiel’s Graph of the Year."
4. "Economic Geography of Eds and Meds."
5. "Diverging Demography of Baltimore and Africa."
6. "More migration stats."
7. "Monroeville Zombies Museum Shuts Down."

Postscript: The Talent Economy is diverging. The Innovation Economy is converging. That means eds and meds are agglomerating in a few winning places. Tech is diffusing like manufacturing did before it. The cost of talent is too damn high.

Geography of Innovation: Why Nashville Is Music City

The sinking legend of Jane Jacobs takes on more water at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Innovation geography.

Subject Article: "The Art of the Hang."

Other Links: 1. "Can you build an intersection?"
2. "A tale of two scenes: Civic capital and retaining musical talent in Toronto and Halifax."
3. "Inbreeding Homophily."
4. "Jane Jacobs Was Right: Gradual Redevelopment Does Promote Community."

Postscript: I'm anticipating I'll have to dig deeper into the notion of social capital proffered by Jane Jacobs. Via a cursory glance, reads like the same nostalgia misinforming Robert Putnam's research. I'm skeptical of the utility. It might be backwards or harmful. There is definitely a link between the urban romanticism of Jacobs and the current density fetish.

Why Technology Firms Are Moving Downtown

Outsourcing innovation employment to recent college graduates at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Convergence of Innovation Economy.

Subject Article: "Companies Say Goodbye to the 'Burbs: Young Talent Wants to Live in Chicago, Not Libertyville; Dilemma for Older Workers."

Other Links: 1. "Move to Dubuque, Not San Francisco."
2. Comment from Dave at Burgh Diaspora.
3. "Mapping Silicon Valley’s Gentrification Problem Through Corporate Shuttle Routes."

Postscript: The resonating read for today's post, "Tales from an overworked City":

Competition among interns is incredibly tough, says one undergraduate who has completed a stint at a boutique bank. “Only a certain amount of interns get through. You will try to be the first one in and the last one out.” Interns, he says, will break the rules. “You want to impress.”

Moreover, an increasing number of international students is adding to the pressure: “Once they’ve got the internship they want a job in the City to get their foot in the door in London so they can get their visas. We’re competing against students from America, China and India. It’s very, very competitive.”

Pay sky-high rent to locate in London in order to "hire" the best and brightest for a pittance. The driving logic behind the economic geography of innovation is the cost of talent.

Move to Dubuque, Not San Francisco

Revitalization of Dubuque, Iowa is a strong indicator of the demise of the Innovation Economy at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Rise of the Talent Economy.

Subject Article: "Corporate Entrepreneurs Are at the Heart of Downtown Revitalizations."

Other Links: 1. "Dubuque?"
2. "Learning from Dubuque, Iowa."

Postscript: When the cost of labor starts driving firm location decisions, the economy is dying. The Innovation Economy is dying (i.e. converging):

But while this geographic battle for supremacy is compelling, its effect is actually to make location less, not more, important. For instance, thanks largely to the internet itself almost everyone has access to the same information; for most people, the days of having to be close to a data centre are long gone; and investors such as us are looking globally for promising companies we can help.

While every location has its opportunities and disadvantages – it is easier to find top computer scientists in San Francisco, for instance, but easier to hold on to them in Helsinki – where you start out is no longer a helpful predictor of your chances of success. Today, the simple truth is that great companies can come from anywhere.

Like manufacturing before it, the world of innovation is getting flatter.

Richard Florida Explains Why Density Doesn’t Impact Innovation

The more parochial a place, the more ineffective the talent at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Innovation geography.

Subject Article: "How to Build a Productive Tech Economy."

Other Links: 1. "Triumph of the Entrepreneurial City."
2. "Science: Orkney – hot spot of the Stone Age."
3. "Natural Experiments Of Rust Belt History."
4. "Urban Myths of Innovation: Density and Serendipity."
5. "Migration Matters."
6. "Are These America's Brainiest Cities?"
7. "America's Truly Densest Metros."

Postscript: In 2010, Richard Florida wrote a series about density. I'm listing them here for personal reference because I'm trying to track how this concept is changing.

"The Density of Smart People."
"The Power of Density."
"Human Capital Density."
"Creative Class Density."
"The Density of Artistic and Cultural Creatives."
"The Density of Innovation."

So there is that. From the titles alone I would infer why so many people think greater density is the cat's meow concerning innovation.It's intuitive, like greater density causes more disease. Florida expressing the density dividend in stark terms:

But that was then; the economy is different now. It no longer revolves around simply making and moving things. Instead, it depends on generating and transporting ideas. The places that thrive today are those with the highest velocity of ideas, the highest density of talented and creative people, the highest rate of metabolism. Velocity and density are not words that many people use when describing the suburbs. The economy is driven by key urban areas; a different geography is required.

Peter Gordon and Sanford Ikeda tackle such claims in "Does Density Matter?"

Of course, density, as we have defined it, remains important, and the kind of face‐to‐face contact and informal network‐building described by Jacobs still serves as the foundation of living cities today, as they ever have. But relying on crude measures of density to fashion policy, whether to promote economic development in the traditional sense or to foster growth by somehow attracting “creative” denizens is unhelpful.

That's hardly a definitive word on the debate, if there is a debate. Much of the density myth seems to spring forth from Jane Jacobs and her geography of innovation:

One of Jacobs’ four prescriptions for successful cities was “the need for aged buildings.” (The others were mixed primary use neighborhoods, short blocks and density.) Maintaining a mix of older housing and commercial stock, Jacobs believed, allowed neighborhoods to retain the diversity that she valued above all else. “New ideas,” as she put it so memorably, “must use old buildings.”

It is a utopian geography for cities: density, diversity, and authenticity. It is a certain kind of urban aesthetic that currently holds sway with policymakers thanks to the evangelizing of Richard Florida. But it isn't a rigorous analysis of the geography of innovation.

Gentrification of Work in the City

How Jane Jacobs helped push employment away from the urban core at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Producer city versus consumer city.

Subject Article: "The Art of Gentrification."

Other Links: 1. "Outgrowing Jane Jacobs and Her New York."
2. "Jane Jacobs, Andy Warhol, and the Kind of Problem a Community Is."
3. "We're Not in New York Anymore."
4. "Triumph of the Entrepreneurial City."
5. "Find a New City."

Postscript: The reintroduction of the producer city to San Francisco has upset the apple cart:

Nearly five decades after the Summer of Love transformed San Francisco into the epicenter of the hippie movement, a new generation is redefining this city's culture again. No longer content to live and work in the quiet suburbs of Palo Alto and Menlo Park 30 miles south, thousands of young tech workers are migrating to the city, seeking a more urban, multicultural lifestyle. They are bringing with them a stampede of tech companies and venture capitalists, and inevitably attracting some homegrown resentment for jacking up housing costs and gentrifying once gritty neighborhoods.

The tension is between workers enjoying the wages of a global labor market and the creative class that inherited the city from manufacturing. Forgotten, as usual, are residents who were unable to change with the times. Gone are the days when higher wages meant an exit from the city. The geography of aspiration has switched from suburb to downtown. This puts tech workers at odds with artists, the economically dislocated, and firms seeking a CBD address. As artists displaced the blue collar, the white collar now displaces the creative class and the ghost of Jane Jacobs is very angry.

Triumph of the Entrepreneurial City

Entrepreneurship is urbanity at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Geography of innovation.

Subject Article: "The Future of Downtown Vegas Is Somewhere in Tony Hsieh's Apartment."

Other Links: 1. "The Metropolitan Revolution: The New Geography of Innovation."
2. "Silicon Valley Is Detroit: Are Zoning Laws to Blame?"
3. "Why Today's Start-Ups Are Choosing Urban Lofts Over Suburban Office Parks."
4. "Burbank to Brookline Soar in Suburb Shift: Real Estate."
5. "Monumental Roots: The great stone monuments of prehistoric Britain, including Stonehenge, were born in a wave of innovation that apparently began on a remote Scottish island."
6. "When Innovative Cities Were Set in Stone."

Postscript: Stonehenge not as city of innovation, but center of gravity:

From all over Britain they came by the thousands, with their families, their pigs, and their cattle, to this huge complex of earthen and wooden monuments by the River Avon, known today as Durrington Walls. Inside a circular earthen bank and ditch, 500 meters in diameter, stood a smaller circle of dozens of stout, upstanding timbers. In the center, the body of a venerated chief lay in state. The pilgrims feasted to his triumphs and to his memory, roasted their cattle and their pigs, and then the procession began. ...

... Right next to Durrington Walls, excavators have found a village with a population that might have been in the thousands, with houses built in a style—including the placement of the beds and a central dresser— that apparently originated in far-off Orkney. Parker Pearson and others are confident that the people who lived there helped build the monuments, and the huge number of animal remains suggests that whoever was in charge of the vast project had to keep them well-fed. Other researchers have found that pottery from the village—manufactured in the Grooved Ware style first seen in Orkney—held rich traces of both dairy products and pig fat.

If a city doesn't bring together people from the ends of the earth, then that city won't be innovative. Likewise, places other than cities can bring together people from the ends of the earth and spur innovation. All the talk about the inherently innovative city thanks to density is hogwash.

Rust Belt Geography and Awful Journalism

Dying city myths at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Geographic stereotypes and migration.

Subject Article: "A restaurant to fuel Rust Belt renewal."

Other Links: 1. "This is One of America's Most Violent Cities — And It Deserves More Attention."
2. "The Lowest Hanging Fruit."
3. "Portland Is Dying."
4. "'Fastest Dying Cities' Meet for a Lively Talk."
5. "Braddock mythos redux."
6. "Braddock Misunderstood."
7. "Picture Show: Urban Decay and Renewal in Braddock, Pennsylvania."

Postscript: Chris Briem (Null Space) also blogged about "A restaurant to fuel Rust Belt renewal." Where the attention belongs:

I will only add one statistics for those who really want to claim there has been progress in Braddock of late. The latest poverty statistics released last month* show that the overall poverty rate of Braddock residents is 39.9% and for children under 18 no less than 66.2%. 

How should a journalist raise concerns about Rust Belt community struggles? I'm not all that concerned about the hype. For the most part, it is harmless and might do some good. As for the problems, they remain ill-defined and unsolvable as a result. And that goes for the restaurant venture as well. What problem does it address? I think we have skipped over the step of establishing a working baseline geography and thus the facts are made to fit the popular narrative. Braddock drowns in the hell that has become much of Rust Belt coverage in the press.

Suburban Sprawl Spurs Innovation

Want diversity and creativity? Moving to the suburbs at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Innovation geography.

Subject Article: "The Young, the Restless and Economic Growth: Countries with a younger population have far higher rates of entrepreneurship."

Other Links: 1. "My Own Private Metropolis."
2. "The artsy pulse of a city: The beat is moving to the burbs."
3. "Urban Minor Leagues of Globalization."
4. "Every Artist's Studio Is a Future High End Rental."

Postscript: Saint of Urbanity, Jane Jacobs once wrote, “Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings." Cities with good bones and the right density are centers of innovation. Jacobs privileges place over people. The diffusion of knowledge and subsequent innovation are considerably less romantic. People move and share ideas. City or suburb, old or new building, only migration matters.

Urban Minor Leagues of Globalization

Fleeing alpha global cities for more innovative geographies at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Convergence of the Innovation Economy.

Subject Article: "The Metro Areas With The Most Economic Momentum Going Into 2014."

Other Links: 1. "Displacing Education as the Most Important Asset for 21st Century City Growth."
2. "Economy, opportunity thinning restaurants' supply of cooks."
3. "Portland Restaurants, Tech Cafeterias Are Eating Up All Of S.F.'s Cooks."
4. "The artsy pulse of a city: The beat is moving to the burbs."
5. "My Own Private Metropolis."

Postscript: I often meander away from a post title, which isn't a problem. Just change the title to capture the emergent theme before clicking publish. I forgot to do that. No matter since this one post has two themes going on. The first part is how globalization is moving down the urban hierarchy (e.g. from San Francisco to Portland). The second part is how innovation and creativity are moving from the urban core to the suburbs, a reconfiguration of economic geography similar to that of restaurant talent moving from DC to Pittsburgh. I intend to take on that second theme more thoroughly in my next blog post using this article as the subject, "The Young, the Restless and Economic Growth: Countries with a younger population have far higher rates of entrepreneurship." The positive correlation between a younger population and more entrepreneurship makes the same mistake as those who emphasize the positive correlation between greater urban density and more innovation. Both perspectives overlook the impact of migration itself on creativity.

Epidemiology of the Knowledge Virus

Effective distance matters more than density and proximity for innovation at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Geography of innovation.

Subject Article: "How Connectedness—Not Distance—Predicts the Spread of a Pandemic."

Other Links: 1. "The Spaces and Times of Globalization: Place, Scale, Networks, and Positionality."
2. "Why Apple’s Suburban Spaceship Could Lose the War for Tech Talent."
3. "Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?"
4. "The Small Social Networks at the Heart of Chicago Violence: If you run with a bad crowd, statistically speaking, you’ll get in trouble."
5. "Urban Myths of Innovation: Density and Serendipity."
6. "Birthplace Diversity and Economic Prosperity."
7. "Churn Types Defined."

Postscript: The blog post should have been much better. Relating the social network geography of crime to innovation works. But I dropped the ball explaining the links. The article about crime deserves its own spotlight. More social capital begets more crime and less innovation. Less social capital begets less crime and more innovation.

San Francisco's Fortress Against Gentrification

Increasing the supply of housing makes gentrification worse at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Ironic demographics.

Subject Article: "Arise, Tenderloin: It is San Francisco’s most glaring contradiction, an island of need in a sea of prosperity. Can it be helped? Does it even want to be?"

Other Links: 1. "'Cool Gray City of Love,' by Gary Kamiya."
2. "Soaring rents force lifestyle changes."
3. "Move Silicon Valley to Cleveland."
4. "Of Course Uber Should Be Regulated."

Postscript: From the subject article, a possible link between government engineered gentrification and the reduction of crime:

To explain the unique policing challenge posed by the Tenderloin, Cherniss cites an analytical framework used by criminologists: the so-called crime triangle, which posits that crimes have three components—suspect, location, and victim. In the Tenderloin, “going after the suspects is pointless,” he says. “I need to get rid of the location to solve the problem.”

Emphasis added. That neatly sums up former NYC mayor, Rudy Giuliani's method of cleaning up the city. He got rid of the red light district Times Square, gentrifying the neighborhood for tourists. Chicago's mayor (Rahm Emanuel) is following the same script, knowing that going after the suspects is pointless. Emanuel will help other parts of his city gentrify as a solution to the crime problem.

Silicon Cleveland, Where the Rent Isn't Too Damn High

Innovation has already abandoned Silicon Valley at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Convergence of the Innovation Economy.

Subject Article: "Some Further Thoughts on Moving Silicon Valley to Cleveland."

Other Links: 1. "Rust Belt of Silicon Valley: San Jose Is Dying."
2. "A Creative Comeback in the Big Easy."
3. "A Snowier Silicon Valley in BlackBerry’s Backyard."
4. "Midsize Cities in Poland Develop as Service Hubs for Outsourcing Industry."

Postscript While the move of Silicon Valley to Cleveland got the blog post spotlight, economic convergence in Poland was the star:

In fact, Lodz, a former textile manufacturing center with a population of about 740,000, is just one of several Polish cities that have become service hubs for an international corporate clientele that values Poland’s well-educated and often multilingual work force.

In midsize cities like Wroclaw and Gdansk, Poles are doing back-office work not only for Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consulting Services, but also for major corporations like IBM and banks including Citigroup and Bank of New York Mellon.

About 110,000 people work in what is broadly known as the business services industry in Poland. The category includes outsourcers like Infosys that take over such functions as finance or information technology for customers, as well as banks and other companies that set up in-house operations to do their own back-office work.

For me, Poland has been a bellwether for the convergence of the Innovation Economy. Dell moved operations from Limerick, Ireland to Lodz, Poland. Ireland itself is a hot spot of economic convergence. The competition for talent is fierce with more places competing for a piece of the innovation pie. The salary ask for employees in alpha global cities is too damn high.

Silicon Valley Is Detroit: Are Zoning Laws to Blame?

Detroit was yesterday's Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is well on its way to becoming tomorrow's Detroit at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic convergence of the Innovation Economy.

Subject Article: "Why a Nonprofit Backs Dropping Out of School."

Other Links: "Excerpted from THE NEW GEOGRAPHY OF JOBS by Enrico Moretti."

Postscript: Rezoning and supply-side economics won't solve San Francisco's gentrification problem.

Creative Urban Spaces Don't Promote Innovation

Artists and techies duke it out for control of the city at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Density, migration, and innovation.

Subject Article: "San Francisco City-Makers Say the Tech Sector Is No Good at Urbanism."

Other Links: 1. "The Geography of Anti-Gentrification: Google Buses and the World Trade Center."
2. "What Tech Hasn’t Learned From Urban Planning."
3. "Expensive cities are killing creativity: New York City, a traditional incubator for artists, has now become a 'gated citadel' for creativity."
4. "Loudoun County population is the fastest-growing in fast-growing Northern Virginia."

Postscript: I published the blog post at Pacific Standard yesterday. I read the following this morning:

This group of people, the tech workers who came here strictly to follow money, is a serious point of tension among San Franciscans. Pat T describes, “Now that they’re here they have all these complaints about it…Twitter just happens to be here. That’s a point of contention for a lot of people in the city because a lot of people want SF to be their idea of SF. They have this idea of San Francisco, and these new transplants aren’t coming for that same city.”

The artists are indigenous, the real San Francisco. The techies are newcomers, who don't understand the city's soul. The gentrification battle is about control of urban space, not displacement.

The Geography of Anti-Gentrification: Google Buses and the World Trade Center

Putting jobs in the middle of the gentrification debate at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Employment and gentrification: consumer city versus producer city.

Subject Article: "What Tech Hasn’t Learned From Urban Planning."

Other Links: 1. "French McDonald's Bombed; Breton Terrorists Suspected."
2. "Talent Geography 101."
3. "Thousands protest at former U.S. embassy in Iran."
4. "Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?"
5. "No Rest for the Wealthy."
6. "In Search of the Next Hot Neighborhood: As gentrification heats up, here are the signs that an area is primed to take off."
7. "Google bus blocked in San Francisco gentrification protest."

Postscript: Anti-gentrification factions attacking commerce in Berlin:

Despite the increases, the cost per square meter for a Berlin apartment remains about a third of wealthier cities such as Hamburg and Munich.

But like music fans who rebel when their favorite indie bands makes it big, no one seems particularly happy about the city's new wealth or its hip international profile, which old-timers blame for driving up the rents and attracting legions of American poseurs.

The ban on vacation apartment rentals is part of a growing backlash that has seen protesters attack investors at a business convention and anti-gentrification activists vandalize a newly opened hotel.

Gentrification, it's producer city versus consumer city.

Ireland: Gentrification of a Nation

Time to dump the conversation about gentrification at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic dislocation and forced migration.

Subject Article: "Irish exodus casts shadow on recovery from financial crisis."

Other Links: 1. "Were Jews Political Refugees or Economic Migrants? Assessing the Persecution Theory of Jewish Emigration, 1881-1914."

Postscript: To extend the metaphor of Irish emigration as gentrification, global talent displacing native workers:

"If you look at why multinationals came to Ireland before the crisis, they came for a number of reasons," said Barry O'Leary, the Industrial Development Agency's (IDA) chief executive.

"The things that they came for were not affected when the international financial crisis hit," he told AFP.

For foreign-born software developers, there was no financial crisis in Ireland. They can pick the nicest flat in the city. Competition for local real estate is a mismatch between tradable skills and labor (usually construction) concentrated in non-tradable industries. If you want work and a place to live, then you must leave home.

Why Is Gentrification Such a Hot Topic?

The geographically mobile gentrify the neighborhoods of the stuck at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Geographic mobility, class, and gentrification.

Subject Article: "Why Are Americans Staying Put?"

Other Links: 1. "New York City's Perpetual Gentrification."
2. "A Pilgrimage to the Vanishing Streets of My Grandmother’s Lower East Side."
3. "The Freegan Establishment."
4. "What drives human migration?"

Postscript: Does not a post make, but good food for thought here:

1917—The Great Jazz Migration begins when noted musician Joe “King” Oliver leaves New Orleans, La., and settles in Chicago, Ill. He is soon joined by other early Jazz greats. Their presence in Chicago laid the foundation for the Southern Black music genre (with heavy sexual overtones) to become a national obsession. Actually, the “migration” may not have been quite so romantic. Instead of being forced by the closing of the New Orleans Storyville district, Jazz greats probably left New Orleans for Chicago for the same reason other Blacks left the South–failing crops forced the disappearance of jobs while Northern factories recruited Blacks for work to produce arms and other goods for World War I. Nevertheless, many historians view Oliver’s relocation to Chicago as the start of New Orleans Jazz migrating to the rest of the nation.

I've read many people framing the Great Migration as forces of politics and culture pushing African-Americans out of the South. First off, a large number of Blacks relocated within the South (rural-to-urban migration). Second, often glossed over is the importance of recruitment and publicity to paving the way for the move from rural South to urban North. A similar migration folklore is confusing the debate about gentrification.

New York City's Perpetual Gentrification

Gentrification is forever at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Demographic churn and gentrification.

Subject Article: "A Pilgrimage to the Vanishing Streets of My Grandmother’s Lower East Side."

Other Links: 1. "About Arrival City."
2. "Bronx Gentrification."
3. "NY Times Explores The 'Gentefication' Of Boyle Heights By 'Chipsters.'"
4. "Halloween in Detroit: Theatre Bizarre."
5. "America’s rental crisis."

Postscript: Aspirational migration doesn't seem to be a problem until the aspirants pine for a neighborhood where most residents are stuck. Thinking of Pittsburgh, and other legacy cities, gentrification will pit return migrants against elderly, fixed-income residents. The abandoned city made dirt cheap living possible. But those out-sized pensions demand high property taxes. The influx of city-slickers will jack up real estate values, challenging renters and home owners alike. Then there are the non-profits (e.g. hospitals and universities) buying up huge tracts of land, making residential more dear and more important for municipal revenue. Furthermore, anchor eds and meds gentrify residential neighborhoods. Meanwhile academics and activists act like something insidious is going on. Everything is gentrification and it is all bad. Left unsaid is that only Marxist revolution will fix the "problem".

Identity: State of Mind or State of Place?

The long history of gentrification in New Orleans at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Migration and gentrification.

Subject Article: "What does it mean to be a New Orleanian?: Richard Campanella."

Other Links: 1. "New Orleans' history shows that culture can be invigorated by new influences: Richard Campanella."
2. "Forget Brain Drain. The Truth Is Israel Gains When Talent Goes Abroad."

Postscript: Not New Orleans, but on point:

"The old-timers see: We are losing" said Katia Kelly, a Gowanus blogger and longtime local. "Whole Foods is one more example of stores catering to the affluent newcomers."

If some of the old-timers were becoming affluent, then you would hear a different story about gentrification. The angst is more about citizenship than displacement.

YURPs, Burps, and Globalizing Big Easy

Will relocate across country for crumbs of globalization at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic convergence and globalization.

Subject Article: "As New Orleans comes back, some neighborhoods boom, others stay blighted."

Other Links: 1. "New Orleans Restaurant Scene Rises, Reflecting a Richer City."
2. "Talent Geography 101."
3. "Economic Geography of Eds and Meds."
4. "Silicon Chasm: The class divide on America’s cutting edge."
5. "Manufacturing Migration: Who Will Move for Low-Skill, Low-Pay Jobs?"

Postscript: Who will move long distances for the crumbs of globalization? Young adults with college degrees, that's who.

Transit Oriented Boondoggle: The Problem With Detroit's Streetcar System

Investment in any kind of transportation should aid production, not consumption at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Producer city versus consumer city.

Subject Article: "Invest in mass transit to retain young people, Michigan Municipal League says."

Other Links: 1. "Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?"
2. "Knight Creative Communities Initiative (KCCI) Evaluation: Final Report."

Postscript: Speaking of Michigan:

Making Woodward Avenue cool — presumably more than it is already to muscle car fans and pub-crawling millennials — could revitalize Pontiac, diversify the economy into the technology sector and even reverse brain drain, a committee of the Oakland County Business Roundtable has determined.

The "Coolest Corridor" initiative, proposed by the roundtable's Economic Development Committee at the annual roundtable meeting today at the Troy Marriott, calls for convening a task force to determine how to support business growth trends and attract and retain tech companies. ...

... "Woodward Avenue does not stop at the boundary of Oakland County, providing an opportunity to connect with edgy communities within Detroit," the report states. "The Coolest Corridor initiative would promote a vibrant mix of social gathering where commerce, culture, recreation, entertainment, education and inspiration meet."

Michigan already tried the consumer city approach to urban revitalization (“Cool Cities” Initiative) under former Governor Jennifer Granholm. It didn't work because people follow jobs, not the other way around.

U.S. Geography of News Stories

Drawing outside the lines on the map in order to include Pittsburgh at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Geographic stereotypes and mesofacts.

Subject Article: "Michigan can't afford to lose its lead in engineering talent."

Other Links: 1. "Middle Ground: The first national public radio show to focus only on Middle America, the states in-between California and the eastern seaboard. Who says it's flyover country?"
2. "Map of Middle Ground."
3. "For Celeste Headlee, the Middle Ground is Not Flyover Country."
4. "Mitten State: Michigan Nickname Used In Wisconsin Tourism Campaign."

Postscript: This blog post is a shameless plug for the Middle Ground fundraiser:

WHAT WE NEED:
A basic studio setup with a mic, mixer, Telos unit for recording phone calls, acoustic foam for the walls and audio editing software. Those are all one-time investments. But we also need funds to pay local reporters for their stories, to pay commentators, and to pay local stations for studio time. 

At the time of this posting, there are only 33 hours left in the campaign to raise $20,000 with almost $6,000 to go.

Legacy Economy: Pittsburgh Steel Crazy After All These Years

Steel king in Pittsburgh at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic development.

Subject Article: "Pittsburgh's evolving steel legacy and the steel technology cluster."

Other Links: 1. "Life after steel: Hamilton grows up."
2. "Steeltown: A Century of Steel."
3. "Why Are Some Cities More Entrepreneurial Than Others?"
4. "The factory of the future."
5. "Michael Porter's cluster theory as a local and regional development tool: The rise and fall of cluster policy in the UK."
6. "Ann Arbor looks to stake its place at the intersection of IT and the automotive industry."

Postscript: I searched the term "legacy economy" recently. It's used in a pejorative sense, which suits me just fine. Like Pittsburgh's brain drain, the legacy economy is a good thing. The quality of regional talent production, as well as talent refinement, is a draw for business. I'm getting more confident that the Talent Economy is the heir apparent for the Innovation Economy, which is already converging.

Economic Geography of Eds and Meds

Eds and meds are dying at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic divergence of the Talent Economy.

Subject Article: "Where 'Eds and Meds' Industries Could Become a Liability."

Other Links: 1. "The End of the Road for Eds and Meds."
2. "Historic Jobs Factoid II."
3. "Key to job growth, equality is boosting tradable sector of economy."
4. "Colleges deploy marketing pizazz to woo students: New tactics to chase shrinking pool of high school grads."
5. "Pittsburgh campus freshman class bigger, better."

Postscript: I wrote about the economic geography of eds and meds last March. I danced around the heart of the issue: whether or not a sector of an economy is tradable. Only recently have I come to appreciate the importance of the tradable economy for the development of cities. Urban amenities are non-tradable. You have to move to a city in order to benefit. That's the thrust of Richard Florida's model of migration. Jobs follow people. However, the tradable economy drives urban growth and prosperity. People follow jobs. The cool cities game is zero-sum, with most places losing. I'm astonished how many cities and towns pursue this strategy. Pittsburgh is eating their lunch.

It's the Birth Rate, Stupid

It's the birth rate, stupid at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Demography and mesofacts.

Subject Article: "Is it mining? Timber? Weather? Upper Peninsula population trend puzzles."

Other Links: 1. "What's A Yooper?"
2. "Michigan’s 'Cool Cities' Initiative."
3. "Fewer college grads moving to Michigan, demographer finds."
4. "Why the Smartest People in the Midwest All Move To Chicago."
5. "Where 'Eds and Meds' Industries Could Become a Liability."

Postscript: Good or bad, the connection is local and the relevant history recent. If we can't see it or remember it, then it doesn't exist.

Immigration and Gentrification

The parochial and xenophobic Jane Jacobs at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Authenticity and romantic attachment to place.

Subject Article: "in defence of diversity."

Other Links: 1. "London Is Dying."
2. "Rural China Is Dying."
3. "Ask A Native New Yorker: How Guilty Should I Feel About Being A Horrible Gentrifier?"
4. "Hudson Street Ballet."
5. "The New York City Draft Riots of 1863."

Postscript: Both terms "brain drain" and "gentrification" misunderstand migration. I'm still looking for a good reason to distinguish gentrification from other forms of displacement and economic dislocation. In both cases of brain drain and gentrification, those who leave are 100% pushed out of the community. That is to say, the community could do something to make them stay. Migration isn't that clean cut. There is usually some push and some pull informing a relocation. Also in both cases, newcomers are dehumanized and ostracized. Most of the furor over gentrification seems like an excuse for xenophobia.

Australia’s Migration Hangover

Pop goes Australia's migration bubble at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Migration and economic growth.

Subject Article: "Our national journey to prosperity."

Other Links: 1. "Stranded Hotel in Australia Emblem of Mining Bust: Commodities."
2. "Lose it and move it: Displaced Americans move locally."
3. "Local Area Unemployment Statistics: Las Vegas-Paradise, NV Metropolitan Statistical Area."
4. "Real Estate Sizzles Again In Las Vegas."
5. "Net migration reaches 10-year high as exodus to Australia slows."

Postscript: Commodities boom. Commodities bust. Conventional wisdom has a boomtown playing the hand it is dealt wisely, investing the wealth into other parts of the economy. The same rationale applies to migration. How well is Portland managing its current largess of human capital? Not very well, as near as I can discern. I have similar concerns about Australia.

Rural China Is Dying

Chinese people will cease to be Chinese people at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic convergence and dying places.

Subject Article: "China's villages vanish amid rush for the cities."

Other Links: 1. "London: people moving out, people moving in."
2. "Creative Class Myths About Talent."
3. "Beijing to Make It Easier to Bet the Farm: Leaders Set Goal of Clarifying Land Rights With Eye to Speeding Urbanization, Improving Agriculture."
4. "Environmental Explanations for Urban Migration and Sprawl."
5. "China's Pittsburgh Moment."

Postscript: Economic cycles and migration aside, I'm mainly interested in the connection between rural communities and national identity. Reading about China, I kept thinking about Mexico:

In addition to the gender of farming, the gender of out-migration from feeder states like Michoacan, Jalisco, Guanajuato, Zacatecas, and more indigenous Chiapas and Oaxaca, has changed radically. Once upon a time only men headed for El Norte and the potentially mortal consequences of this dangerous migration but womens’ numbers in the flow north have tripled in the last decade as neo-liberal agrarian policies imposed from Mexico City have devastated the "campo" and the bottom has fallen out of Mexican agriculture.

Under presidents Carlos Salinas and Ernesto Zedillo (1988-2000), the Constitution was mutilated to allow the privatization of communally-held land, grain distribution was handed over to transnationals like the Cargill Corporation, guaranteed prices were scrapped, and credit for poor farmers dried up. Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon (2000-2010), presidents chosen from the right-wing PAN party, have hastened the demise of the agricultural sector.

The coffin nail was the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Every year since, millions of tons of cheap U.S. and Canadian corn swamp Mexico forcing small-hold campesinos and campesinas out of business. A Carnegie Endowment investigation into the impacts of NAFTA on poor Mexican farmers published on the tenth anniversary of the trade treaty calculated that 1.8 million farmers had abandoned their milpas in NAFTA’s first decade – since each farm family represents five Mexicans, the real number of expulsees comes in close to 10,000,000, at least half of them women.

Emphasis added. Growing corn is to Mexico, as rice cultivation is to Japan. NAFTA effectively destroyed the icon of the Mexican yeoman farmer. Migrants streamed from rural Mexico to urban America. Rural Mexico is dying. Which means, Mexican-ness is dying. The link between a rural landscape and the national soul appears to be a universal. Thus, urbanization is an existential threat to the state and not so surprising that many suppose the globalizing city is undermining sovereignty.

Creative Class Myths About Talent

Creative Class migration is intra-regional and talent migration is inter-regional at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic geography of cities and migration.

Subject Article: "Attracting immigrant talent essential to city economies, Coletta says."

Other Links: 1. "Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?"
2. "THE SOURCES OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT: WAGES, HOUSING, AND AMENITY GAPS ACROSS AMERICAN CITIES."
3. "Ernest George Ravenstein: The Laws of Migration, 1885."
4. "The Rise of the Creative Class: Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race."
5. "Big Fish Small Pond Talent Migration."

Postscript: This is my second post in response to Michael Storper's book, "Keys to the City: How Economics, Institutions, Social Interaction, and Politics Shape Development."

Canada Is Dying

Attracting talent isn't a workforce development strategy at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Migration and workforce development.

Subject Article: "Kenney tells employers to raise wages: Way to solve skills shortages."

Other Links: 1. "NEARLY EMPTY JAPANESE VILLAGE POPULATED BY LIFE-SIZED DOLLS."
2. "To ensure prosperity, immigration reform must not halt the flow of newcomers."
3. "Era of Dying Places."
4. "Upcoming Quebec election will be a referendum on tolerance."
5. "IT groups must learn to grow their own talent."

Postscript: Businesses pushing for more immigrants because of a "talent shortage" is a boondoggle. It's no different than pushing for more talent retention.

Hong Kong Is Dying

Pricey and super-dense Hong Kong desperately needs more people at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: It's the birth rate, stupid.

Subject Article: "Where some see overpopulation, a plan to attract more people."

Other Links: 1. "These Unbelievable Photos Make Hong Kong Look Like Abstract Art."
2. "Hong Kong sees second wave of emigration: Slow economy among factors pushing people away."
3. "What's Really Behind Europe's Decline? It's The Birth Rates, Stupid."
4. "Population Distribution and Educational Attainment within MSAs, 1980–2010."
5. "Economic Trends The Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area."

Postscript: Perhaps it once was, but the health of city today isn't tied to population change.

No Exodus: Great Recession Migration Mystery

Time to step away from the population growth model at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Demographic decline and economic development.

Subject Article: "Lose it and move it: Displaced Americans move locally."

Other Links: 1. "Hail Columbia! The federal government’s relentless expansion has made Washington, D.C., America’s real Second City."
2. "Secular Stagnation, Coalmines, Bubbles, and Larry Summers."
3. "We’re turning Japanese, I think we’re turning Japanese: This scatterplot sure seems to think so."
4. "Latin Migrants Shift Sights From U.S. to Neighbors: More Migrant Workers Send Money Home From Developing Countries."

Postscript: The running theme of my last few posts concerns growth without growth as the new paradigm of economic development. The old paradigm, growth because of population growth, is unsustainable. I'm looking at you, Portland, Oregon.

Long Island Is Dying

Real estate developers such at demography at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Ironic demography and brain drain.

Subject Article: "‘Brain drain’ should not dictate our land-use policy."

Other Links: 1. "Long Island Brain Drain Targeted by Planners, Developers."
2. "Dead Souls: Nikolai Gogol, translated from the Russian and with an introduction by Donald Rayfield."
3. "BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS: A PUBLIC ART CONTEST IN EVANSVILLE, INDIANA, BECOMES A DEBATE OVER CLASS, RACE, AND GOOD TASTE."
4. "'The New York Times' Is Dying."
5. "Are smarter women less likely to want children?"
6. "Attracting immigrant talent essential to city economies, Coletta says."
7. "Revenge of the Rabenmutter: No Sex for You."

Postscript: While I intended to shift focus from brain drain to gentrification, a spate of smart articles about general demographic issues that impact both "problems" popped up over recent days. In terms of policy, I'm reading communities coming to grips with a more nuanced understanding of demographic decline. Economic development as practiced now is not long for this earth.

'The New York Times' Is Dying

Celebrating brain drain from the New York Times at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Human capital controls and migration.

Subject Article: "Does anyone still work at the ‘New York Times’?"

Other Links: 1. "Fit to sprint: Top talent exits The New York Times."
2. "Editor exodus continues at NYT."
3. "New York as a Gigantic Refinery of the Nation’s Human Capital."
4. "Esquire: Where does the money go?"
5. "In Praise of Brain Drain: Want to help the developing world? Hire away its best minds."
6. "New Canadian teachers head abroad amid tight job market."

Postscript: Assertion:

Britain has a brain drain problem: it's one of the two countries whose inventors are keenest to leave home, according to a study for WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

The :"journalist" continues:

WIPO is interested because of the negative effect on emerging countries of seeing their cleverest people emigrate. Africa and the Caribbean suffer the worst, with skilled scientific and technical graduates seeking more lucrative work in more mature economies.

Emphasis added. From the actual WIPO report:

The international mobility of skilled workers and its economic implications have emerged as important development topics. The project on intellectual property (IP) and brain drain seeks to generate new insights into this topic by exploring the potential of patent data to cast light on a specific category of highly skilled migrants – namely inventors. In particular, by exploiting information on inventor nationality and residence in Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications, it maps the migration of scientists and engineers, thereby establishing a partial geography of high-skilled migration. The present document describes in detail the mobility patterns of inventors over the 1991-2010 period. The underlying analysis is entirely descriptive and, by itself, does not offer evidence on the causes and consequences of skilled migration.

Emphasis added. Upon clicking through to read the report, I expected to find brain drain hysteria. The clamor for a more effective intellectual property regime is the model for concern about brain drain. Talent is the intellectual property of businesses and places. If we do not protect this intellectual property for businesses and places, then they won't invest in talent. To WIPO's credit, it stays above the controversy. The journalist, on the other hand, is promoting a specific agenda.

Portland Is Dying, Revisited

It's the birth rate, stupid at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic convergence and migration economies.

Subject Article: "Steve Duin: The sustained mediocrity of Oregon's higher-ed system."

Other Links: 1. "London: people moving out, people moving in."
2. "London Brain Drain."
3. "Check of Portland’s vitals shows signs of life."
4. "'Fastest Dying Cities' Meet for a Lively Talk."
5. "Texas Is Dying."
6. "Chicago Is Dying."
7. "Germany's Ann Arbor Dilemma."
8. "Urban Innovators: University Park Alliance."
9. "Got kids?"
10. "Economist tells Akron group that attracting talent is key to thriving cities."
11. "Talent Attraction Expert Joe Cortright."
12. "Not Dante's Pittsburgh."
13. "Once nearly extinct, U.S. streetcar is back."
14. "Don’t count on future immigrants for economic growth."
15. "Rust Belt chic: Declining Midwest cities make a comeback."
16. "Millennials Flock to Washington After Abandoning City in Recession."
17. "Andrew Zimmern on AZ Canteen, Pharmashilling, and Why Pittsburgh Is Hot"

Postscript: Believe or not, I'm tired of writing about Portland. But then I stumbled into that Steve Duin opinion piece comparing higher education in Oregon with that of North Carolina. It was a good opportunity to clear the air about the Portland-Pittsburgh comparison. Enough of that. Andrew Zimmerman saying nice things about Pittsburgh:

Pittsburgh: You talk about an island in the Darwinian sense. Here's a major American city stuck at the end of a series of river valleys, cut off from the rest of country. It is a Eastern European immigrant city — working class, blue collar — that has reinvented itself over the last 10-20 years with this craftsman approach to life that reminds me of cities like Austin, Portland, OR and Portland, ME. I hate to be one of those people who's like 'Pittsburgh is the next big thing,' but I get around more than most people and I'm telling you, Pittsburgh is like the next big thing. The geography lends itself, it's incredibly lush farmland, and inexpensive city with incredible history. They're renovating 100 year old railroad terminals into city markets. They had chefs who left the city because there was no scene and went to LA, they have the talent to be anywhere in America, and they have come back and can afford to open their own places and do what they want. It's very, very exciting. As a student of these things, there's just enough Fortune 500, sports teams, to feed that group. The art community and food community are kind of leading but there's money following them.

I think people who are in eastern Pennsylvania and it's like: Who can afford a $5 million house on the beach? Why not get a beautiful house on the river? I saw places that are just breathtaking. It's also got the Appalachians running through, so it's got stunning geography. The food scene is cool. Lots of good stuff going on. There are these old bars in these old 'hoods ... It's like today's special is goulash, tomorrow's is stuffed cabbage, huge portions. There's like three grandmas and a grandpa making this from scratch, the best stuffed cabbage I've ever had and I grew up on that.

If you think Zimmerman is gushing about the Burgh here, give this a listen: "Go Fork Yourself: Pittsburgh with Rick Sebak."

Diverging Demography of Baltimore and Africa

Pronatalist Baltimore at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Demographic sabermetrics.

Subject Article: "Commodities: Destination Africa. Trading houses are looking at the vast potential that lies in meeting the continent’s surging consumer demand."

Other Links: 1. "Blighted Cities Prefer Razing to Rebuilding."
2. "Expert: Population Drop Not 'Fatal' Per Se."
3. "Is growth for cities always a good thing?"
4. "Downtown Baltimore population grows despite few immigrants."
5. "London Brain Drain."
6. "London: people moving out, people moving in. There's not much difference between the numbers flowing in to the capital and the numbers flowing out. The explanation for the population boom lies elsewhere."

Postscript: Instead of welcoming immigrants, will the next mayor of Baltimore promote a baby boom? Population growth is a policy end. That's a lousy goal. People follow jobs. Put talent to work instead of fighting brain drain.

Chicago Is Dying

Weighing the good and bad sides of Chicago at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Sabermetric demography.

Subject Article: "Now how do we keep them?"

Other Links: 1. "Will the foreclosure crisis kill Chicago?"
2. "Shrinking City Myths."
3. "Podthoughts by Colin Marshall: Curious City."
4. "'I Wanted to Be Successful, and I Could Do That in Houston.'"

Postscript: I keep coming down on the side of Chicago is dying. I remain unsure if this is the case. Among the most globalized US cities, Chicago is the most affordable. It's a redoubtable talent magnet that also refines human capital for bigger and better things elsewhere. The global city distinction will remain a huge legacy asset. It also boasts perhaps the greatest assortment of Rust Belt legacy assets (e.g. research universities) in the entire country. Yet no place better epitomizes "the gated city."

Texas Is Dying

Texas is drunk on population growth at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Ironic demographics.

Subject Article: "Texas Economy: Miracle or Myth?"

Other Links: 1. "Portland Is Dying."
2. "Tyler Cowen’s 10 Reasons Texas Is Our Future."
3. "‘Big, Hot, Cheap and Right’: Erica Grieder Talks About Texas."
4. "GROWTH WITHOUT GROWTH: AN ALTERNATIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GOAL FOR METROPOLITAN AREAS."
5. "Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?"
6. "Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson: The exit interview."
7. "Texas Redistricting: The Effects of Exurbanization."
8. "El Paso County Attorney Tackles Brain Drain By Encouraging Bright Students To Come Back to El Paso."

Postscript: Migration, domestic and international, is more the province of the best educated. Demographic decline impacts much more of the world than Japan and Germany. After decades of diverging, the Innovation Economy is converging. Concerning workforce, size doesn't matter. Productivity does.

When Jobs Follow People

How shitholes such as Seattle attracted talent and revitalized at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Legacy economies.

Subject Article: "Kickstarter co-founder returns to Chicago."

Other Links: 1. "Iconic "will the last person" Seattle billboard bubbles up again."
2. "City of despair."
3. "The New Geography of Jobs (Enrico Moretti)."
4. "Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?"

Postscript: While I'm not fond of the Lincoln Institute report, the term "legacy city" resonates with me. I'm working with the idea of "legacy urban economy". Demographics at the center, what Akron was is what it will be.

Doubling Down on Start-Up Las Vegas

Las Vegas gambling on jobs following people at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Urban growth and talent migration.

Subject Article: "Las Vegas’ tech sector has come a long way over the past year but still has some maturing to do."

Other Links: 1. "Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?"
2. "The city startup: Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project."
3. "'Young People in Omaha Are Able to Take Bigger Risks.'"

Postscript: The subject article makes a strong case for people-follow-jobs, demonstrating a disconnect with Tony Hsieh's downtown revitalization efforts. Fair critique or not, I'm still not sure what the people-follow-jobs approach would look like. After reading this recent post from Aaron Renn, I get the same sense of helplessness that Enrico Moretti expresses in his book, "The New Geography of Jobs." What can Las Vegas do in the face of economic divergence? A new post coming soon attempting to answer that question.

Do Jobs Follow People or Do People Follow Jobs?

Battle of the two urban geographic paradigms at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Theories about cities.

Subject Article: "Keys to the City: how economics, institutions, social interaction and politics shape development."

Other Links: 1. "Smart Growth: Education, Skilled Workers, & the Future of Cold-Weather Cities."
2. "THE 'CREATIVE CLASS' IN THE UK: AN INITIAL ANALYSIS."
3. "What Workers Lose By Staying Put."
4. "Stay Put, Young Man."
5. "Failure of Place and Economic Development."
6. "The city startup: Tony Hsieh’s downtown project."
7. "The Interview: Joel Kotkin versus Richard Florida."
8. "Mapping 60 Years of White Flight, Brain Drain and American Migration."
9. "Mobility, Skills, and the Michigan Non-Compete Experiment."
10. "Talent Retention Causes Brain Drain."
11. "Noncompetes Are Lame — Let’s Set the Creators Free."
12. "Q&A With Michael Storper About His New Book."

Postscript: One comment, almost an aside, from Michael Storper's lecture stood out to me. The jobs-follow-people approach does have its place. Storper contends that this theory about cities is effective intra-regionally, but not inter-regionally. That's how I see place-making and place-branding working, changing the psychology of residents and helping with community integration.