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.

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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.