Enrico Moretti , a professor of economics at UC Berkeley, saysthe real divide in America is not among classes. It’s a geographic divide. Where we live matters what jobs exist, and thus what potential income exists.
Moretti authored The New Geography of Jobs. In it he describes how the “three Americas” (big cities, old manufacturing capitals, and the middle) are shifting the economic landscape, including the number of jobs and income levels ... READ MORE
His proposition of the importance of Brain Hubs appears plausable and consistent with history in the western United States anyway.
We've had uncounted boom-bust towns that grew up around mining, homesteading, trading routes, East Coast Publishing, new technologies such as railroad lines, water canals, London insurance selling, Wall Street trading, etc. The North Carolina Research Triangle, Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship around Seattle, etc. are arguably more recent versions of this same pattern.
Authors such as Dickens, Michner and L'Amour, among legions more, have built careers writing stories about these shifts. I wonder why the release of Moretti's book makes Brain Hubs news?
Doesn't he just confirm common sense? The best paying jobs are likely to be where innovators make enough money for themselves in order to hire others in order to make more money, because people see it in their own self-interest to have a job as a way to make their own life easier or more fun? Why else besides self interest does anyone buy a smart phone?
Anyway, kudos, Moretti for a great image ("ideal type") of a Brain Hub around which we can discuss economic and political issues.
Moretti authored The New Geography of Jobs. In it he describes how the “three Americas” (big cities, old manufacturing capitals, and the middle) are shifting the economic landscape, including the number of jobs and income levels ... READ MORE
His proposition of the importance of Brain Hubs appears plausable and consistent with history in the western United States anyway.
We've had uncounted boom-bust towns that grew up around mining, homesteading, trading routes, East Coast Publishing, new technologies such as railroad lines, water canals, London insurance selling, Wall Street trading, etc. The North Carolina Research Triangle, Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship around Seattle, etc. are arguably more recent versions of this same pattern.
Authors such as Dickens, Michner and L'Amour, among legions more, have built careers writing stories about these shifts. I wonder why the release of Moretti's book makes Brain Hubs news?
Doesn't he just confirm common sense? The best paying jobs are likely to be where innovators make enough money for themselves in order to hire others in order to make more money, because people see it in their own self-interest to have a job as a way to make their own life easier or more fun? Why else besides self interest does anyone buy a smart phone?
Anyway, kudos, Moretti for a great image ("ideal type") of a Brain Hub around which we can discuss economic and political issues.