Images archive

Blog has moved to www.allaboutcities.ca

Hello,

Although the new blog site is still being tweaked, it's time to relocate.

Please go to http://www.allaboutcities.ca/

and update your bookmarks / favorites!


Thanks for your patience the last month!

Wendy

From industrial hang-overs to global, knowledge and consuming centres

A few decades ago the worlds bigger cities often looked like they might become irrelevant. Manufacturing was dying, unemployment often growing, and crime and pollution sent anyone who could afford to do so fleeing to the suburbs. New York City was a prime example of this, losing 824,000 people in the 1970s.

In a great article this week, Graham Bowley details in the International Herald Tribune how a combination of globalization, the rise of the knowledge economy, and "consumerist urbanism" (my phrase) have contributed to a renaissance in global cities like New York and London.

Globalization, in Bowley's context, refers to migrants from around the world being able to reach these cities. London's 3rd largest source of immigrants is Poland (after China and Africa, places with much bigger populations). Global cities that function draw in people, while struggling areas (such as parts of Eastern Europe) lose people -- often the best and brightest, but also simply the more adventurous and enterprising.

The knowledge economy has been particularly important for New York, which has a global cluster advantage in the financial sector. But other large, multi-faceted cities are also benefiting. Owing to so much "cross fertilization of ideas." Michael Batty, a professor of Urban Planning at Harvard notes that "the number of inventions and number of Web sites per head grow exponentially as the population of any city grows."

Finally, consumerist urbanism draws yet more residents and tourists to the big cities. As Bowley explains it,

People now want to live in dense areas because dense areas offer what people want to consume - opera, sports teams, art museums, varied cuisine. In France, for example, he and his fellow researchers found a robust correlation between the number of restaurants and the growth of cities.

*****************

Bowley's article intrigued me because it shows three ways that major cities appeal to billions on the planet. As the world becomes more tightly connected, and many individuals are influenced by the same values or inspired by the same ideas. Therefore, certain cities that embody these values seem to attract people from the world over.

Is the city your workspace?

As the knowledge economy grows, along with the percentage of workers paid to think, create and innovate, how and where people work is also changing.

Ironically, the easier it is to work from anywhere, the more important it has become to interact face to face with co-workers as well as others in the industry.

Cities, therefore, are important as spaces for collaboration. Power lunches at high end restaurants have long been a fixture of the elite business community and the site of mega power brokerage. Today, however, it seems a local cafe, the food court, or the patio of a simple burger joint have also become places where people come to think -- whether alone or with a group, and generate new ideas.

Many companies now allow their workers to be fully mobile. To work from anywhere in the company's leased office space -- or from their house, the park or Starbucks.

Readers, I'm curious ... how many of you regularly use "the city" and its amenities as workspaces?

If you do, are you self-employed? Or, do you work for an employer who offers and encourages this type of flexibility? Where do you like to work? why?

Assuming that this is a long term trend and not a fad, it has implications for urban economic development, and the locations where companies will choose to locate. A city may struggle to attract big knowledge-oriented employers without amenities where employees want to hang out and work. Downtowns may again rule over suburban business parks.

More on this subject soon...

And, e-mail me directly if you want to respond privately

Cities and Longevity

Residents of New York City today live longer than most other Americans, statistically speaking anyway. Indeed, many studies suggest benefits to urban life.

While other countries -- including Canada -- have noted similar longevity benefits to urban areas, many have assumed that greater access to health care is the reason (despite universal insurance coverage in places like Canada, if you live far from a city you're less likely to see a doctor or specialist because of the travel and time involved). However, a place like New York, where health care isn't universal, suggests it's something else more related to lifestyle.

In an article in New York Magazine, Clive Thompson suggests that dense city life self-selects people who are interested in a healthy lifestyle. They are educated, like to exercise and to walk. Since crime was moved out, this group of creative and type A people have moved in.

While I think this is partially a reason. Looking at the issue of urban longevity more globally, it doesn't explain the whole picture. After all, millions of New Yorkers did not arrive in the past decade -- they've been there for generations and not all are particularly well educated, and many don't have access to health care. Yet, they don't drag down the life expectancy average as much as many of their (arguably wealthier) rural and suburban fellow Americans.

It may be as simple as the fact that people in New York don't drive. Without a car you naturally walk more, even if you make liberal use of taxis and transit. Cities like New York encourage or even force everyone, rich and poor, to exercise. A suburb or rural area where the only way to get anywhere is to drive, does not do this.

A sedentary life is known for contributing to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc. all of which lower the typical age at death.

New York's situation could be taken a step further. People don't drive because traffic is clogged most of the time.

Congestion therefore leads to healthier populations and long life.

Young Entrepreneurs: Consider Middle America?

Rather than try to launch a new business in an expensive superstar city, 20 something entrepreneurs should look at places like Norman Oklahoma or Cincinnati Ohio. That's the argument of Ryan Healy (of employee evolution) in his regular column Twenty Something on the Brazen Careerist.

Healy makes some excellent points. If you're not looking to start a leading edge business tied to a cluster that only exists in a superstar city (that is, you're not trying to start the next Google), then picking a less expensive city in which to live makes sense. It provides more financial freedom to get the business going. His great example is his friends who started a chain of sandwich shops in Norman.

This advice, however, may just apply to young entrepreneurs -- and maybe just young, male entrepreneurs. Creativity Exchange revealed last week how young women tend to earn more in big cities than their male counterparts. It would be interesting to see if female entrepreneurs do better in smaller, regional cities or big superstar metropolis. I'd guess the latter for the same reasons as women do better in regular paid jobs in big cities.

An alternative to middle America -- especially if you might need to market to clients in a big city -- would be to try a cheaper, satellite city to a major urban area. Maybe Denton Texas instead of Dallas. Or Bellingham instead of Seattle. Or Barrie or Kitchener instead of Toronto. These small cities may offer the low cost-of-living advantages of a regional centre and the proximity to the pricey big cities for marketing your product of visiting clients.

World Cities and Work

Here's a intriguing quote about how and why "world cities" function:

"As technology shrinks distance, differences [in local laws, language and traditions] persist and are even amplified. To mitigate the resulting polarizations, global businesses prefer "world cities" as locations. These cosmopolitan centers, existing and new, mediate between a global culture and the flavors of each locality. Differences are celebrated and even put to work."

- Andrew Blum, "Work and the Workplace in 2006,"
Dialogue published by Gensler

Assuming Blum's observations are correct, there are several consequences. In particular, the economy of many nation-states will require supporting "world cities" within their boundaries. World cities welcome people from around the world and one could argue therefore that a country could undermine these centers by restricting immigration or starving a city for infrastructure funds.

Reactions?

The Minneapolis Bridge Collapse: Sign of anachronistic times?

Cities in North America and around the world face decaying infrastructure that is often controlled by other levels of government. The costs of repairing, upgrading and expanding a highway network are high, and beyond the typical budgets -- not to mention political mandates -- of most metropolitan governments.

If the mayor and council are unsuccessful in lobbying for upgrades, the situation can become serious.

Regardless of whether aging infrastructure or a construction crew mistake caused the Minneapolis incident, this same tragedy could have happened in dozens of cities because the highways were not built to last this long without upgrades nor to handle the larger vehicles of the 21st century, as detailed in this New York Times article.

Maybe this will serve as a wake up call across the USA. In Canada, a similar collapse in Montreal in Sept 2006 generated renewed attention on urban infrastructure, particularly in the province of Quebec, but also nationally.

While politicians on both sides of the border scramble to find funds to be seen as doing something, what no one is doing is proposing to give cities the funds to maintain and develop their own infrastructure. Nor is anyone suggesting that cities and metro regions need more control over the infrastructure that allows them to function.

Cities in both countries need a new deal -- a new city-centred relationship with higher governments is required. Cities are now the economic engines of regional and national growth.

Having the national budget control their infrastructure is an anachronism -- or the tail wagging the dog.