Big Cities' Success Reflects Deepening Urban-Rural Divide
Decisions by Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google to add tens of thousands of jobs to New York and the Washington area reflect a growing divide in the U.S. A few big cities, particularly on the coasts, are soaking up high-tech talent and are also becoming wealthier, more liberal and more ethnically diverse—shifting the economic, political and cultural landscape of the nation.
Smaller cities are also pulling in educated workers, but are having trouble competing for the nation’s most prized jobs and biggest projects, while rural areas are falling behind. In the past 10 years, employment in U.S. cities has grown 7% and the number of businesses in these places has grown 11%, while employment has contracted in nonmetro areas and the number of businesses there has barely changed, according to Labor Department data.
Big shifts in how people work and live over the past generation are behind the change. As global competition dried up manufacturing jobs in small towns, the U.S. became more dependent on the growth of knowledge and service jobs that tend to proliferate in dense places.
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When startups began locating in cities in the 1990s, many experts predicted that because the internet allowed people to work from anywhere, tech workers would scatter across the country as firms sought cheap office space. Instead, places like Silicon Valley and Seattle proved that clusters of highly skilled workers fueled innovation at a faster pace. That supercharged places that were already doing well, drawing in more educated workers who wanted to live in walkable neighborhoods with nice restaurants and hip entertainment.
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-cities-success-reflects-deepening-urban-rural-divide-1542239287 (paid subscription)