The same thing is happening in the USA. It definitely feels like you must be in one of around 5-10 cities or you don't exist. If you don't go to one of them for

The same thing is happening in the USA. It definitely feels like you must be in one of around 5-10 cities or you don't exist. If you don't go to one of them for at least part of your career, you go nowhere and command half or less the pay. The rest of America is "flyover country" where people supposedly live but nothing happens. This effect has always existed to some extent, but the "alpha cities" phenomenon is definitely something I've watched intensify as I've grown up. I've asked older people about this and they've agreed: in the past 15-ish years the prestige value of where you live has exploded in relevance. Here are some examples from the tech field: - The first true "PC" by most accounts, the Altair, came from Albuquerque, New Mexico. - The Compucolor II was the first "color" PC by many accounts and came from Atlanta, Georgia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compucolor_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compucolor_II - The IBM PC was designed in Boca Raton, Florida. - The BBS phenomenon was largely decentralized, with major BBS efforts all of the world. - The Commodore 64, the biggest selling PC in the early-mid 80s, was from West Chester, Pennsylvania. Can you imagine that today? Now almost everything happens in SF, a notable but much smaller number of things happen in NYC, Boston, and LA/OC, and nothing happens anywhere else (or so it seems). I'm not sure exactly why this is. It could be a side-effect of increasing wealth disparity: the alpha cities are where the rich live, and the rich are increasingly richer than everyone else. Another factor could be the Internet. The net was supposed to decentralized, but as we've seen in other areas this has not always been the case. The net has been a powerful centralizing force.