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.

Italy Is Dying

Fictions about Italian brain drain at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Demographic decline and brain drain hysteria.

Subject Article: "Italy: The Nation That Crushes Its Young."

Other Links: 1. "What Workers Lose By Staying Put."

Postscript: Italy suffers from too much social capital. Mr. Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam, would say that it is a good thing. It isn't. Most Italian communities lack the capacity to embrace newcomers and thus engage in knowledge transfer. Italy lacks churn, domestic and international. An allegory:

Peter’s café sits on a hillside in Horta, a port city on one of the Azores islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. By the time you reach the docks in the harbour, you can tell that this place is special. Bright, colorful paintings of sailboats and flags line the piers—hundreds and hundreds of them, drawn by visiting captains and crew members from every corner of the globe. Horta is the one place between the Americas and Europe where world-traveling sailors stop to take a break. Some are heading toward Fiji, others to Spain. Some are on their second tour around the world; others are simply resting before the last leg to Brazil. They come from different backgrounds and cultures. And all of them converge upon the rustic-looking Peter’s Café. Here they can pick up year-old letters from other world travelers or just sit and talk over a beer or a glass of Madeira.

When I saw this place for the first time, I realized that the serene environment of the café actually concealed a chaotic universe. The café was filled with ideas and viewpoints from all corners of the world, and these ideas were intermingling and colliding with each other.

“Get this, they don’t use hooks when fishing for marlin in Cuba,” one visitor says.

“So what do they use?” another asks.

“Rags. The lure is covered in rags. When the fish strikes the rag, it wraps around the fish bill and won’t let go because of the friction. The fish don’t get hurt and can be released, no problem.”

“That’s pretty neat. Maybe we could use something like that. . . .”

The people here participate in what seems like an almost random combination of ideas. One conversation leads into another, and it is difficult to guess what idea will come up next. Peter’s Café is a nexus point in the world, one of the most extreme I have ever seen.

Brain drain is good for innovation. Not enough young talent is leaving Italy.

Allentown Is Undead

A growing population isn't what you think it is at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Mesofacts and demography.

Subject Article: "Weak Tax Base Hurts Renewal: After Steep Decline, Allentown Places Hope in Development to Boost Property Values."

Other Links: 1. "Billy Joel never put down Allentown, anyway."
2. "Sun Belt Counties Dying."
3. "If I Ruled The Metro -- Suburban Mergers."

Postscript: My theme of "X" place is dying satirizes the metric folklore we use to make that determination. The population numbers, up or down, are much ado about nothing.

The Great Gentrification

Switching gears from brain drain to gentrification at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Migration and xenophobia.

Subject Article: "Rockaway worries some outside relief workers are carpetbaggers."

Other Links: 1. "The Word Hoosier."
2. "Chicago’s Hillbilly Problem During the Great Migration."
3. "OKIE MIGRATIONS."
4. "Liz Cheney’s biggest challenge: The carpetbagger label."
5. "CARPETBAGGERS."

Postscript: In terms of talent migration, the primary concern for dying/failing cities is transitioning from brain to gentrification. Hypothetically, let's concede civic efforts to stop brain drain have worked. The flow reversal should boost demand for real estate, amenities, and infrastructure. But instead of staying in the suburbs where they grew up, your college graduates settle in urban neighborhoods. Those neighborhoods, while struggling with decades of sprawl, still have residents who are accustomed to the cheap rents resulting from the city exodus. Suburban-produced affluence collides with the isolation of urban blight. How does a community reconcile this tension? Is gentrification all that it is purported to be? I intend to dig into these questions as I have with brain drain.

Next American Hotspot

Which dying city will be the next big thing at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Talent migration projections.

Subject Article: "Census: Americans are moving again."

Other Links: 1. "DURANGO, COLORADO: Next Big Thing."
2. "HARDWICK, VERMONT: Next Big Thing."
3. "Jobless rate among the lowest."
4. "Demographic Deception."
5. "Go Back To Ohio."
6. "San Antonio Talent Economy: Bubbles and Barriers."
7. "[GENTRIFICATION DIARIES] A Tale of Two Austins."
8. "Are Artists to Blame for Gentrification?"

Postscript: I'm in the process of shifting blog focus from brain drain to gentrification. The two issues occupy the same space in a community's psyche. Locals good. Outsiders bad. However, brain drain is descriptive. Gentrification is predictive. I want to try my hand at being more predictive given my understanding of brain drain.

Celebrating Dying Places

Cheering on brain drain from Israel at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Talent churn and innovation.

Subject Article: "In Boston, Israel’s brain drain becomes a meeting of the minds."

Other Links: 1. "Noncompete Agreements Are The DRM Of Human Capital."
2. "Revenge of the Rabenmutter: No Sex for You."
3. "Israel Is Dying."
4. "Israel's Brain Drain: Why are so many Israelis teaching at American universities?"
5. "Knowledge Creation, Diffusion, and Use in Innovation Networks and Knowledge Clusters."
6. "NerdWallet Book Club: Orly Lobel, ‘Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids and Free Riding.’"
7. "REGIONAL DISADVANTAGE? NON-COMPETE AGREEMENTS AND BRAIN DRAIN."

Postscript: Okay, I started this blog thinking brain drain was a bad thing. Turns out, it is a good thing. Next up, the pejorative "Rust Belt" becomes a point of pride. "Hell with the lid taken off" doesn't mean what most people think it means. Sprawl and shrinking cities are more a function of upward mobility than White Flight. Technological advances that flooded the world with cheap food emptied out rural communities. The success of the Manufacturing Economy led to its own demise. "Bad" metrics stem from positive outcomes.

Revenge of the Rabenmutter: No Sex for You

Rather than deal with the stigma of the working devil mom, Japanese women forswear intimate contact at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Demographic decline.

Subject Article: "Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex?"

Other Links: 1. "Global Human Capital: Integrating Education and Population."
2. "United States of Failed Cities."
3. "Rabenmutter: Germany Waging the War for Talent Without Women."
4. "Quoth the Raven: I Bake Cookies, Too."
5. "Popular blog goes drama at Fuji TV’s “Oni Yome Nikki” and more."
6. "Is Japan a dying nation?"

Postscript: The pattern developing is that positive economic outcomes beget "dying" or "failing" cities.

United States of Failed Cities

Carl Schramm fails urban economic geography at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Policy narratives and social science.

Subject Article: "Why Does The World's Richest Country Have So Many Failed Cities?"

Other Links: 1. "Ambush In Mogadishu."
2. "New Tom Hanks movie features Minn. Somali actors."
3. "Urban Myths of Innovation: Density and Serendipity."
4. "Introduction to HNR360 – Failed Cities, Fast Cities."
5. "Post-Soylent Pittsburgh."

Postscript: For my own archival purposes, the year of urban peak for some well-known Rust Belt cities:

They decided that Buffalo’s civic apogee was 1901.  Its industry was diverse.  It received much of the Midwest’s grain in its port, milled it, and transshipped it by rail for export.    Pittsburgh’s best year was 1910; Rochester’s, 1928; Philadelphia’s, 1929; Detroit’s, 1950; and Gary’s, 1953.

Mind you, that's not a population peak. The tell-tale demographic decline comes after the economic decline. For example, Pittsburgh's epic exodus during the 1980s is roughly 75 years after its civic apogee. That's a long time to go without demanding labor from outside the region.

Urban Myths of Innovation: Density and Serendipity

Greater urban diversity and density aren't all that at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Urbanization and innovation.

Subject Article: "I Love You, David Byrne, But You're Wrong."

Other Links: 1. "Jeff Speck: America Has So Many Problems. Walkability Solves Most of Them."
2. "Two Brains Running."
3. "A call for innovation."
4. "The Urban Tech Revolution."
5. "Can you build an intersection?"
6. "Your Knowledge Is Nothing If No One Else Knows You Know It."
7. "The Paperman Official Trailer Disney Short 2013 HD."
8. "The Novel & Movie: The Bridges of Madison County."
9. "Urban Islands of Poverty and Bowling With Strangers."

Postscript: To make an analogous point about the link between erroneous geographic stereotypes and public policy:

People have been afraid of the dark since the dawn of time – and it’s a good instinct to have when you’re part of the food chain. For millions of years, light = safer. So no one complains about light that exposes potential predators.

While the film suggested a connection, ”there is no real, demonstrable correlation between lighting and crime,” Wren said. “(Rather) people feel less afraid of crime in well-lit areas.”

People feel that greater density and diversity fuel innovation. Bring on the innovation district boondoggles.

China's Pittsburgh Moment

Demographic decline informs better policy at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Ironic economic development.

Subject Article: "Where Have All the Workers Gone? China's Labor Shortage and the End of the Panda Boom."

Other Links: 1. "The Brain Gain: The Rise of San Antonio’s Talent Economy."
2. "Chris Briem, Regional Economist, Urban and Regional Analysis."
3. "Post-Soylent Pittsburgh."
4. "A very brief history of Pittsburgh: The rise, fall and rebirth of the city that built America."
5. "The single biggest change in Pittsburgh since the 1980s......"
6. "Demographic Trends and the City of Pittsburgh."
7. "Maybe I need to issue a press release: City of Pittsburgh now 'younger' than the United States....."
8. "I don't even know how far back you have to go to find the last time that was true."

Postscript: A passage from the Foreign Affairs article about China's labor shortage that I wanted to write about but didn't fit the blog post:

The new generation of migrant workers, by contrast, hardly worked on the farm, if ever at all, and often never saw their parents doing field labor either. Recent studies from Chinese think tanks have shown that these new migrants are less motivated by simple financial opportunities than by their own career advancement and individual interests. Moreover, they tend to put a premium on social justice and fair treatment. These lifestyle considerations make living closer to home, family, friends, and a familiar dialect and culture (which range as much in China as do the modern-day variations of Latin spoken in different corners of Europe) as important as their salary, if not more so in some cases.

Every region in the United States is in the talent attraction and retention game. However, the strategies and tactics employed are divorced from actual studies of migration patterns. What do Millennials want? I sat across from a Columbus, Ohio real estate developer at the International Economic Development Council conference in Philadelphia. The roundtable discussion was titled, "They're Just Not That into You (But They Could Be): Attracting and Retaining Young Professionals." About half of the people there for the chat fit into that category and the real estate developer was keen to know what they wanted. What I heard is that cool amenities didn't matter. Big fish, small pond did. They wanted to make a difference. They would migrate in search of that opportunity. But that qualitative data doesn't fit into a real estate developer's model. Such is the current state of regional talent management in the United States.

Demise of the Global City

Global cities in decline at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Globalization and geographic mobility.

Subject Article: "London’s Great Exodus."

Other Links: 1. "London Is Dying."
2. "What future for Britain’s ‘rustbelt’ towns?"
3. "The San Francisco Exodus."
4. "New York City's Next Williamsburg: Fishtown."
5. "Stay Put, Young Man: Americans used to be exceptional for how often they moved. But that once-powerful source of both efficiency and upward mobility is now in steep decline."
6. "Fortresses of Globalization and Wilmington, Delaware."

Postscript: To put a fine point on the post, I disagree with the analysis that migration patterns indicate economic divergence. I see economic convergence. Talent can have all of New York City in Philadelphia. Go ahead and move back to Des Moines, Iowa instead of sticking it out in sinking Chicago.

Israel Is Dying

Brain drain turning Israel into Somalia at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Networks of global innovation.

Subject Article: "Israeli ex-pats' Nobel win highlights brain drain."

Other Links: 1. "Ireland Is Dying."
2. "Two Israeli scientists who emigrated to U.S. win Nobel Prize in Chemistry."
3. "The World’s Leading Nations for Innovation and Technology."
4. "CBS '60 Minutes' Bob Simon: Detroit reminds me of Mogadishu, Somalia."

Postscript: Occasionally, I come across a legitimate brain drain problem. This story about two expatriate Nobel Prize winners isn't one of them. The Associated Press doesn't bother trying to balance its reporting, buying the hysteria without so much a second thought. Such junk journalism keeps the brain drain myth going.

Fortresses of Globalization and Wilmington, Delaware

Looking at the relationship between economic globalization and urban reinvestment at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Urban planning and globalization.

Subject Article: "City job policies are helping create two different and unequal Chicagos."

Other Links: 1. "Fortress Europe: How the EU Turns Its Back on Refugees."
2. "Migrant boat capsize leaves 27 dead in Mediterranean."
3. "France's troubled suburbs: Rebranding la banlieue."
4. "Mapping America's War on Terrorism: An Aggressive New Strategy."
5. "Rust Belt Allure of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania."
6. "creative change: loma design district gives wilmington identity, redevelopment it longed for."
7. "About the Riverfront Development Corporation."
8. "Recovery Grant Funds Amtrak Renovations."
9. "Michael S. Purzycki, Executive Director."

Postscript: Saskia Sassen's divergent global cities are converging down the urban hierarchy:

The hegemony of Tokyo, London and New York—and advanced economies as a whole—will wane. The MGI expects an additional 7,000 large companies by 2025—and most of the newcomers will be based in developing countries.

The number of headquarters in São Paulo is expected to triple by 2025. Beijing and Istanbul will have twice as many large companies. In 12 years’ time 46% of large companies will be headquartered in emerging markets. About 300 cities could host large companies for the first time by 2025—and more than 150 of these cities will be in the China region. In Western Europe, there will be just three newcomers.

Globalization is on the march, in developing countries and to the forgotten parts of the United States.

Failure of Place and Economic Development

Obsession with the failure of place unleashes a parade of Underpants Gnomes at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Economic development folklore of talent migration.

Subject Article: "Creative Placemaking Has an Outcomes Problem."

Other Links: 1. "Gnomes Know Business."
2. "Underpants Gnomes And Talent Migration."

Postscript: Economic developers and planners are working the wrong end of talent migration. It's all push factors, brain drain. Suburban dreams get labeled, "white flight." Migration is more pull than push. A better place won't solve much of anything. I heard it loud and clear at the IEDC annual conference. Places develop, not people.

Casino Economic Redevelopment in Atlantic City

Casinos gone bad at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Two-track urban economic development.

Subject Article: "Can Revel Save Atlantic City?"

Other Links: 1. "Rust Belt Allure of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania."
2. "Atlantic City's Incredibly Bad Gamble on the Revel Casino."
3. "Allentown Lyrics."
4. "Morning Fix: Rust Belt Revival."
5. "A Tale of Two Cities? London’s economic success does not seem to have translated into lower rates of poverty or inequality."
6. "The Rise and Rise of the Global City."

Postscript: This post is more about what is right in Bethlehem than what is wrong in Atlantic City. Without exception, the economic developers I've met at the IEDC conference in Philadelphia feel embattled. Good things happen when different interests can come together and move a city forward.

Rust Belt Allure of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Rust Belt Bethlehem's Ann Arbor Dilemma at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Geographic stereotypes and talent migration.

Subject Article: "Bethlehem Steel's Redevelopment: Winners and Losers in Public-Private Partnerships."

Other Links: 1. "People Develop, Not Places."
2. "Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: A Moravian Settlement in Colonial America."
3. "Why I Have the Bethlehem Steel Tattooed Across My Back."
4. "Rust Belt Chic Development."
5. "Lena Dunham Wants Brooklyn to Be More Like Chattanooga."
6. "History of ArtsQuest."
7. "The man behind SteelStacks: Decades of risk-taking culminate Friday with opening of $53 million concert and arts complex."
8. "Noncompetes Are Lame — Let’s Set the Creators Free."

Postscript: Cruising the internets for an image of the blast furnaces, I settled on a tattoo:

The Bethlehem Steel, that mass of jumbled metal and heartbeat pumping years of spirit, scrap, and history from the acid banks of the Lehigh River. That keeper of memories, that heroic skyscape jutting up from our sunken valley. It's sacred as a footprint, toxic as the depths of the earth, red as blood, and it sits there idly, reminding. The company that gave life to the Lehigh Valley has been history for me since I was born, despite continued operation through the first 15 years of my life. These were years of billowing smoke, fire in the sky, middle shift and layoffs. Years of great mystery: Will dad find another job soon? Are we poor now?

If you grew up in a Rust Belt town, then you understand.

Racism Is Dying

To best model migration, gender trumps race and class at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: The shifting geography of race and Rust Belt Chic Cleveland.

Subject Article: "River Crossings: The old black-divide is breaking down as young people of all races migrate west."

Other Links: 1. " Bentley Faculty Profiles: Joni K. Seager."
2. "Captive Labor Markets and Migration."

Postscript: Possibly a new migration trend, “What’s going on in Lakewood is you have whites and blacks moving in and meeting together. You have young whites from far-flung suburbs moving and meeting up together.”

The bigger change, in my opinion, is how we look at geography and migration. Globalization neighborhoods are mixing bowls of people who usually have college degrees. It may look more diverse, but everyone shares a lower social capital requirement for community development. That's not to say we've entered a post-racial era. Just that our concept of segregation is woefully outdated.

Your Knowledge Is Nothing If No One Else Knows You Know It

Dan Gilbert's business acumen is the wrong approach for redeveloping Detroit at Pacific Standard magazine.

Theme: Benefits of brain drain and costs of talent retention initiatives.

Subject Article: "Dan Gilbert Defends $300M In Federal Spending For Detroit."

Other Links: 1. "The Talent Dividend."
2. "Want to Kill Innovation? Fight Brain Drain."
3. "The Benefits of Talent Mobility."
4. "German Pork Butchers in Britain."
5. "The Talent Commons: Human Capital and Collective Knowledge Creation."
6. "The Virtues of Leaks, Raids, and Free-Riding: An Interview with Orly Lobel."
7. "Twitter Feed of Mayor Cory Booker."
8. "The Darwin Awards: In Search Of Smart."

Postscript: Three lines of academic discourse are coming together that expose the folly of trying to plug the brain drain. The first is the migration literature putting people in front of place. More recently, I've looked into social networking theory an the problem of inbreeding homophily. More broadly, I'm interested in how knowledge transfer occurs and the impacts of migration on innovation. See pork butchers. Lastly, we have that Silicon Valley magic. Orly Lobel gives the idea of talent churn some academic heft. I think all three streams comprise an economic development strategy based on migration.