4 ms·

I could not have been more wrong in my predictions of this trend. At Y2K I looked at a future where better technology would allow people to spread out around t

by nugget 9y ago

I could not have been more wrong in my predictions of this trend. At Y2K I looked at a future where better technology would allow people to spread out around the country and still tap into meaningful cultural and job opportunities. Lower cost of living and higher quality of life. Instead, it's like the opposite has happened, and we're increasingly roped together by a noose that tightens more every year.

mnm1 9y ago
How can you tap into meaningful cultural opportunities when you live in the middle of nowhere? Cultural opportunities involve two or more people. Jobs sure, remote work is getting easier to find.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Simulcast opera type stuff is pretty useful.
LeoJiWoo 9y ago
It's not really technology pushing people into cities is it ? I assumed its really due to a lack of well paying jobs, combined with an increased debt burden from college. I guess one could argue technology has lead to increased automation and reduction of jobs typically found outside of cities.
- sushisource 9y ago
  I suspect this is almost more of a "marketing" (for lack of a better word) problem than anything else. It's this negative feedback loop where no one thinks non-costal cities are cool, so they don't move there, so they don't become cool, etc, etc.
  - lbotos 9y ago
    I grew up on the East Coast so that may also bias me a bit, but I'm planning on being in NYC for at least the next 10 years seeing how the "second coming" of tech plays out. I feel a lot better about job prospects in NYC in an economic downturn vs basically anywhere else. Sure, rent is high in the abstract but roommates bring it way down.
  - lotsofpulp 9y ago
    It’s also a status symbol to be able to live in a popular place. I don’t think any amount of marketing can change wanting to rub shoulders with the haves versus the have nots.
- qball 9y ago
  >I assumed its really due to a lack of well paying jobs Close. It's because there's been a massive reduction in low-skill jobs that can still pay the bills outside of cities (whose size sustains their service sector, so you can keep the people who can't cut it at university employed). Robotics did this somewhat; Chinese slave labor doesn't help.
- dwaltrip 9y ago
  Cities are the original network effect.
rtkwe 9y ago
I think even if remote work really catches on where it's the not an exception there's still going to be a draw into cities for a lot of people because there's so many more options for everything.
nostrademons 9y ago
You're likely right but early. What happened with Silicon Valley is that the ease of working remotely increased, but the pace at which new innovations are discovered and commercialized increased more, which means that the returns to moving really fast (which usually means a colocated team, to cut out travel/timezone delays) went way up. It doesn't matter if you can save 30% on labor costs if it means that you miss out on a $100B market that just opened up. If you read Carlota Perez, this trend usually reverses itself in the "deployment" phase of a new technology, where market structure has stabilized, best practices become widely known, and the expertise surrounding the technology becomes distributed geographically. For example, the deployment phase for mass production (initially a Massachusetts monopoly in the U.S. in the 1830s and 1840s) came as the great Midwest steel mills and factories were built in the 1890s, the deployment phase for railroads (initially a Midwest & Northeast thing in the 1850s & 1860s) came in the 1910s as railroads were completed linking the South & California into the nationwide network, the deployment phase for automobiles (a Detroit thing in 1900) came in the 1950s and 1960s as suburbs spread throughout the U.S. The catch is that usually the transition from "frenzy" phase to "deployment" phase is marked by a financial crisis, depression, and war. If the new geographic region was on the same side of the war as the new means of production (as with the U.S. after WW2), then the mechanism of diffusion is usually that lots of people are trained in the new technologies as part of the war effort, and when they go home, they bring these technologies with them and start up new businesses that become part of the fabric of the local economy. If the tech monopoly is on the opposite side of the war as the new geographic regions (as with the U.S Civil War, or Asia post-WW2), it's usually because the side with better technology won the war, conquered everyone who resisted, and a bunch of carpet-baggers move into the occupied territories, bring their technology with them, and then integrate with the economies they left behind.

by nugget 9y ago

mnm1 9y ago

How can you tap into meaningful cultural opportunities when you live in the middle of nowhere? Cultural opportunities involve two or more people. Jobs sure, remote work is getting easier to find.

hkmurakami 9y ago
Simulcast opera type stuff is pretty useful.

LeoJiWoo 9y ago

It's not really technology pushing people into cities is it ? I assumed its really due to a lack of well paying jobs, combined with an increased debt burden from college. I guess one could argue technology has lead to increased automation and reduction of jobs typically found outside of cities.

sushisource 9y ago
I suspect this is almost more of a "marketing" (for lack of a better word) problem than anything else. It's this negative feedback loop where no one thinks non-costal cities are cool, so they don't move there, so they don't become cool, etc, etc.
- lbotos 9y ago
  I grew up on the East Coast so that may also bias me a bit, but I'm planning on being in NYC for at least the next 10 years seeing how the "second coming" of tech plays out. I feel a lot better about job prospects in NYC in an economic downturn vs basically anywhere else. Sure, rent is high in the abstract but roommates bring it way down.
- lotsofpulp 9y ago
  It’s also a status symbol to be able to live in a popular place. I don’t think any amount of marketing can change wanting to rub shoulders with the haves versus the have nots.
qball 9y ago
>I assumed its really due to a lack of well paying jobs Close. It's because there's been a massive reduction in low-skill jobs that can still pay the bills outside of cities (whose size sustains their service sector, so you can keep the people who can't cut it at university employed). Robotics did this somewhat; Chinese slave labor doesn't help.
dwaltrip 9y ago
Cities are the original network effect.

rtkwe 9y ago

I think even if remote work really catches on where it's the not an exception there's still going to be a draw into cities for a lot of people because there's so many more options for everything.

nostrademons 9y ago

You're likely right but early. What happened with Silicon Valley is that the ease of working remotely increased, but the pace at which new innovations are discovered and commercialized increased more, which means that the returns to moving really fast (which usually means a colocated team, to cut out travel/timezone delays) went way up. It doesn't matter if you can save 30% on labor costs if it means that you miss out on a $100B market that just opened up. If you read Carlota Perez, this trend usually reverses itself in the "deployment" phase of a new technology, where market structure has stabilized, best practices become widely known, and the expertise surrounding the technology becomes distributed geographically. For example, the deployment phase for mass production (initially a Massachusetts monopoly in the U.S. in the 1830s and 1840s) came as the great Midwest steel mills and factories were built in the 1890s, the deployment phase for railroads (initially a Midwest & Northeast thing in the 1850s & 1860s) came in the 1910s as railroads were completed linking the South & California into the nationwide network, the deployment phase for automobiles (a Detroit thing in 1900) came in the 1950s and 1960s as suburbs spread throughout the U.S. The catch is that usually the transition from "frenzy" phase to "deployment" phase is marked by a financial crisis, depression, and war. If the new geographic region was on the same side of the war as the new means of production (as with the U.S. after WW2), then the mechanism of diffusion is usually that lots of people are trained in the new technologies as part of the war effort, and when they go home, they bring these technologies with them and start up new businesses that become part of the fabric of the local economy. If the tech monopoly is on the opposite side of the war as the new geographic regions (as with the U.S Civil War, or Asia post-WW2), it's usually because the side with better technology won the war, conquered everyone who resisted, and a bunch of carpet-baggers move into the occupied territories, bring their technology with them, and then integrate with the economies they left behind.