Don't forget cities that have influxes of young population so have increasing tax receipts but much lower legacy costs (retirees, infrastructure maintenance, stable growth rate education costs per capita). Most of those cities will mismanage the growth and 20-40 years from now you'll be reading about Nashville and how it was gutted when the software jobs dried up. These come in cycles and cities that have some sort of reason to exist (natural ports/harbors, river confluences, trade points, etc) will continue to exist and most of the rest will not.
A lot of those geographic reasons to exist will probably cease to exist in the next 50 years, as global warming opens up new shipping lines, makes previously verdant areas uninhabitable, makes uninhabitable deserts verdant, changes ocean currents, remakes national borders, and prompts large & powerful cities to divert rivers away from weaker and wetter ones. Containerization already led to large shifts in the fortunes of some port cities, and that was just a technological development that encouraged deepwater ports. Imagine if the sea lanes themselves change.
I can see Northern Canada becoming an enormous boom area in 50 years, with the opening of the Northwest Passage for Asia <=> Europe trade, the need for resupply cities along that sea route, and the melting of the permafrost opening up parts of the tundra to agriculture or tar sands mining. Meanwhile, Florida and New Orleans may be underwater.
TN gets tons and tons of rain. High elevation areas, although somewhat hot, will be climate change winners. Nashville is about as far away from desert or flooding as you can get.
Although NYT told me Duluth, MN was the big climate change winner :) (fyi- I've been there; it's cold af)
That's cherry-picking though. The Gobi desert is expanding very quickly, as is the Sahara into Sudan. The Chihuaha desert also is expanding in Texas, I'm sure there are many other examples. Maybe deserts will in general become greener, but for human aspirations they still seem to be deserts. The greening is problematic because it raises dew points and makes theses areas less habitable for humans.
This is a bad take. You're assuming that incoming folks won't change the politics of funding decisions of the city. In most cases, they do change them, and change cities for the better.
Do you have an example of that? Perhaps I’m biased being in LA and SF but those city budgets seem irreplaceable broken. Infinite amounts to pensions while no one can propose viable fixes to problems.
Sorry, how is meeting pension obligations "irreplaceable broken"? They hired people for years with the promise of retirement pensions. It's a debt, not a budget item.
Cities & states frequently offer absurdly generous pensions to public sector workers for political payoff or corrupt reasons. State workers can sometimes retire in their 50s with a lifetime of absurd benefits. Or, the infamous '13th check' where some innumerate officials mail pensioners one extra check in a given year when the pension does especially well financially- literally robbing from the fund's future. Many state & city pensions are underfunded because they are simply too generous.
Public sector collective bargaining is fundamentally different from private sector. Benefits can't get too generous in the private sector because the bargaining is zero sum and the companies are rational- they can get absurdly generous in the public sector because the payers (politicians) are spending taxpayers' money and not their own. There's little incentive to think about the future
First, you are overstating how generous public pensions are (and grossly overstating the differential in administration of private and public pensions).
Second you think private sector pension planning is better. It is not. Pension funding reduces earnings (and bonuses) and companies will use overly optimistic pension fund growth projections to reduce current contributions, resulting in underfunded private sector pension plans. A great example of how this is handled is Patriot Coal (pension obligation spinoff of Peabody) and Magnum Coal (similar spinoff of Arch, acquired by Patriot). Those were spun off basically insolvent, with all pension obligations, and when the declared bankruptcy the retirees took haircuts and the remaining obligations were socialized with the PBGC (which I suggest you look into if you are interested in public and private defined benefit plan administration analysis).
Because the pension obligations are impossible to meet without bankrupting the local governments or causing them to massively slash other services. The financial liability of these underfunded and overpromised pensions should be shared with those whose unions corrupted the electoral incentives and now depend on these pensions. Either accept reductions to a reasonable level or watch the govt go bankrupt and get nothing.
As with many companies, municipalities and states incurred liabilities for contractual promises whilt not fully funding them, kicking the can down the road.
What typically happens is that either national government baols out the fund, retirees get squeezed, or both. The true beneficiaries are past taxpayers who benefitted from government service delivery based on promised pension benefits to employees, but who skipped on paying the bill at the time.
Oddly, you hear far less about private sector failures in this regard. In part because defined-benefit plans are largely extinct, but the abysmal failure of individualised defined-contribution (401k / IRA) programmes is just the same problem undrr a different flag. But private sector has been dodging this far more than public.
There's more to this, yes. Some of it is government corruption and graft. Mancur Olsen's "The Logic of Collective Action', describing both pensioners' and taxpayers' (mostly a small group of highly-motivated wealthy) very self-interested lobbying to maximise commitments whilst skirting payments is far more instructive.
Not as an optional item to be ejected because of "better planning", no. Absent any budgetary concerns, there are hundreds of thousands of people who worked careers for these cities with the expectation that they could skip retirement savings because there was a pension. Throwing that out at the behest of a 20-something on HN who's fully funding a 401k with a tech salary isn't "responsible government", it's just selfish.
The existence of Prop 13, coupled with pyramid-scheme-style approaches to financing municipal pensions, have led to disasters of financing.
One can imagine a better world in which pension programs are effectively time-independent w.r.t financing (neutral for growth or shrinking), and more financing comes from sources that are likely agnostic to growth or reduction (like Land Value Tax), but the politics here... are not trivial.
I have not seen much of this positivity, that is people voting against their immediate interests to embrace long term change and saving for a different future.
People vote for things which are better for themselves and for social issues they identify with, but rarely for things which actually cost them something.
No, just anecdote from my own lifetime and observations. I would just say the 2nd paragraph of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_costs is essentially the same thing I'm talking about.
The similarity (referenced by the Wikipedia article) to technical debt was what I'd been thinking. More generally, markets and social-political systems have trouble recognising long-term risks and liabilities generally.
Both are forms of debt.
See also Adam Smith's growing vs. declining nations discussion in Wealth of Nations.
Perez's Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital makes the point that when a technological revolution occurs, gains are frequently concentrated in a small number of locales that are the first to adopt the new technology and adapt their local industries to the new structure of the economy. This results in significant economic (short term), military (medium term), and geopolitical (long term) power. The changing power balance usually sparks a war and a realignment of the global order.
In the industrial revolutions of the 19th and early 20th centuries, though, nation states usually adopted the new technologies en masse, with the whole nation sharing in the gains. So you had rising nations like Britain, America, Prussia, and Japan which could challenge declining empires like Austria-Hungary, Russia, China, and the Ottomans.
This technological revolution is different, because you have specific parts of nations that are adapting to the new technologies and thriving, while other parts get left behind and see the power they had wilt away. There's relatively little historical precedent for this; the only ones I can think of might be the decline of the Roman empire (where the Eastern Mediterranean remained up-to-date and civilized, while the Northern European hinterlands disintegrated and broke up) and the American Civil War (where the industrial North conquered the agrarian South). And this pattern isn't just U.S-based: China also has a dramatic disparity in wealth & power between coastal cities and the inland hinterland, as well as one between the high-tech South (centered around Shenzhen and the Pearl River Delta) and more politically powerful North (around Beijing).
I don't know exactly what it means, but I don't think it bodes well for either of the major global superpowers.
Fundamentally, fragmentation. I think the Civil War is a relevant example, honestly. What happens when the disparity between the Silicon Valley elite and the Iowa cattle farmers becomes too much for one side to bear? What's weird this time is the technocrats are pretty spread out on the coasts, and then you have cities like Denver right in the middle. It will be a bit more nuanced than "North vs. South" next time.
Personally, I'd keep an eye out for easy scapegoats like immigration and other cultural issues to spark conflict. I'd also pay attention to economic churn rather than physical conflict. I have a hard time imagining our apathetic population going to war with each other in our day and age, but I can easily picture technology folks blacklisting 'undesirable' customers and blocking access to services, and rural folks putting obstacles in place for access to natural resources they largely control.
>I have a hard time imagining our apathetic population going to war with each other in our day and age
I don't think our population is that apathetic, and I don't think a return to 60s & 70s levels of political violence is really that farfetched. It's what was normal just one generation ago! Small scale groups could conduct random bombings, lone wolf types can carry out assassinations, etc.- this was my parents' generation in a nutshell.
The US has political radicalism (including but not limited to religious fanatics), a violent population relative to other developed countries, obviously lots of weapons (over 300 million firearms!), a very high level of military training/combat experience/institutional military knowledge from 80+ years of wars, loosely organized 'militia' groups, tons and tons of rural areas to hide in, a sympathetic population in those rural areas, etc. We literally check every single box that countries with insurgencies check. I expect a return to small-scale political violence in my lifetime (with gun control, not immigrants, as the flashpoint). Look at a group like Oath Keepers as a great example of who's potentially the most dangerous.
Honestly, my biggest fear are not insurgents but far right-leaning police & military personnel. That's how countries move from insurgencies into coups
I have had similar thoughts. There is a lot to say about the information age, but I have mostly changed my perspective. I don't think it is a technological revolution, or more correctly because of the technological revolution, these things are happening. We probably overestimate how fast things change, and overlay what is an economic revolution onto recent technological development.
Shenzhen is sort of a good example since isn't actually that high tech. There is for sure innovation but it is mostly existing, and sometime even old, technology. It is both culturally and matter of fact disconnected from the West. Much more so than other centers in the region. It is economic factors that make manufacturing there possible more so than technological ones. You might even argue that USSR were more cutting edge, but of course US companies manufacturing there would have been mostly unthinkable.
The power outside of centers mostly weren't taken away by technology, but by trade, mergers and mortgages. Of course technology has a role, but I am not so sure much of it couldn't have happened by fax. I really think the movie wallstreet is more of an answer to what is happening than the social network is.
So if I understand the article correctly the cities that succeeded were the ones that allowed for new industries and businesses to flourish whereas the ones lagging are ones that were built on traditional manufacturing industries that have since dried up in the face of foreign competition and automation.
Am I missing something? That seems pretty obvious to me that the industries that wouldn't recover jobs from a recession are the ones already on their way out and the ones that would thrive are the ones that were starting to emerge during the same time period.
This probably gonna get me killed but I've got to put it out there.
I was so disappointed by the food and music scene in Nashville. Literally every restaurant was some trendy clone of some vaguely hipster cracker barrel (one exception). The music I could find (with one exception) was just sad cover bands doing the same Counting Crows covers over and over again.
Redeeming restaurant: Princes hot chicken. Got that shit at a XXX and it melted my face. Wonderful.
Redeeming venue: High Watt/ Mercy lounge. I don't remember who I saw but it was great.
If you know better places to eat/ find good up-and-coming music in Nashville, please let me know. I want it to live up to what I think it could be.
This is probably gonna get me killed, but I would have qualms with starting or moving a business to a city where reproductive rights are under continual attack. The situation is inhumane.
I'm guessing you were on the Broadway strip? Avoid Broadway/etc at all costs (that's always been the case). There aren't any actual music venues on Broadway. Those don't count.
First off, a caveat... I haven't lived in that area in about 15 years.
If you're downtown, and want a good music venue, The Station Inn is always a good choice. It's crazy to me that it's now a very swank, brand new neighborhood. Used to be a bunch of grimy old warehouses that had been converted into music venues. However, the Station Inn remains and is unchanged. Go there.
Similarly, the Exit/In is still the icon it's always been. If you're not into bluegrass (station inn) go to the Exit/In.
Those are just the famous places. There's plenty of good music if you just move away from Broadway. The area around Vanderbilt used to actually have a lot of neat little dives (The End was always fun, but I haven't been there in years). East Nashville has somehow become both expensive and pretentious (I can't describe how crazy that statement is to me...), but there are a lot of good bars to see local bands at there.
Prince's is really great, but try the random gas station hot chicken as well. Plenty of good places other than Prince's and Hattie B's. They won't be on Google Maps, though. Look for signs on storefronts. Expect cash only, to go only, leg quarters in styrofoam containers. Eat slowly.
A lot of the places I'd point you to for food are gone now... However, Nashville Biscuit House is still there and assuming it's still what it used to be, I'd highly recommended it.
Having lived there 3 years I don’t think I’d go back. There is some good food in East Nashville and I enjoyed the country music at Roberts (more often real country instead of the commercial Nashville sound most places). But you are essentially paying 2x everywhere else in TN to be in bad traffic with faux Southern/ faux hipster transplants, like some kind of big city “lite” version.
It would be interesting to find out how much debt these "superstar" cities have taken on and the structure of their "portfolio"s. Almost all revenue generation done by local municipalities is through property taxes so it's very important to evaluate these places by some sort of Sharpe Ratio or else you're just encouraging these places to be the next Detroit.
1. Cities that have a young urban population with job creation that isn't tied to old industries are thriving.
2. Nashville has no State Income tax, and most cities and states that have no State Income tax are doing well as remote work takes over and tech workers relocate to take advantage.
3. Mention building a convention center for $600MM but no real numbers on what that had to do with the cities expansion. Uncorrelated at best.
4. One major change was the overhaul in zoning regulations that allowed developers to build vertically to accommodate a growing population. Perhaps an parallel to what is happening in San Francisco.
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Summary: The economic turnaround from the recession has unevenly favored cities that are tied to non failing industries in decline. Seems pretty obvious.
Sounds like #3 is cited by entrepreneurs in the article. Not sure that remote work is common enough yet to be having a significant impact, and I'm not sure how remote work would affect it more than other jobs would...
That map is confusing, regions are colored grey that are clearly in the top 20 MSA, like the entire urbanized northeast. Also the article's mostly about Nashville, not its title.
This seems to be the problem people have with the thesis. If you're defining "superstars" as "cities that got highest% bigger since date X" and not "The Biggest Cities" your point and overall concept seem weaker.
From the article>>"...40% of the new jobs generated during that time went to the top 20 places, along with a similar share of the additional wages. Those cities represent only about a quarter of the country’s population and are concentrated in the fast-growing southern and coastal states. None were in the northeast, and only two were in the “rust belt” interior - Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a rebounding Detroit."
New York City is the capital of Norther American commerce and because of that it really can't expand the way that <mid-tier former manufacturing city anywhere else in the country> can, which weakens the overall point about "slow growth" or "getting left behind". Growth doesn't mean the same thing everywhere.
1.) even with some declining cities, US cities are still some of the most powerful in the world. According to https://howmuch.net/articles/the-economic-size-of-metro-area... (2017) Bay Area economy is as large as the entire country of Nigeria, NY area is as largest as Canada, LA is as big as turkey! Even Portland is as big as Qatar! And with the global slowdown in 2018 and 2019, while US is the sole bright spot, the dominance will only be magnified.
2.) demographics is now shifting to where gen z is the biggest generation now. In 5-10 years they will be establishing families and moving to less crowded suburbs and smaller cities. Which means the mega cities will lose some growth and the secondary cities will gain.
odd title, the word 'superstar' is used once outside of the title by an MIT economist proposing federal subsidies for cities/towns with research universities.
no mention of NYC, Boston, nor do they appear on the infographic.
so it seems so called superstar cities aren't really defined as i would expect them to be.
> no mention of NYC, Boston, nor do they appear on the infographic.
Yea, the metric used here is rather convoluted, it's ranking cities by how much their share of total national employment increased. This is going to favor cities that experienced population growth and discount cities that are long since 'at capacity' like NY / Boston.
This ties nicely with another HN post just a few days ago [1] where a person heavily involved in civil engineering talks about why he moved away from the free market view of city growth.
You have a bunch of struggling cities without any funding for basic services, that spend massive amounts in attempt to attract businesses without a way to recoup losses. Which causes a sort of nasty cycle where people move towards cities which have more resources.
Since the word 'taxes' is essentially a forbidden word, the only option is for these cities to receive federal assistance. Or else get left behind even further.
I don't see anything special to US in that phenomenon. I'd even say that US is notably better than most of the world in keeping its 2nd tier cities alive economically.
Most of Asia had that problem for decades, where only 1st tier cities had market for jobs above the "better than nothing" level.
It is either USA becoming more like Asia here, after few decades lag, or it is American second tier cities actually sliding back.
>But interviews with entrepreneurs and officials in Nashville point to a mix of factors behind its success, including some that were out of the city’s control, such as the state’s lack of an income tax, and others associated with its unique local assets.
NYC and SF, both big tech hubs, both have income taxes.
NYC and SF both have tremendous advantages that Nashville doesn't, Nashville needs to compete.
I don't know if NYC and SF are examples of good governance, or examples that show great cities can support lots of poor governance as long as they retain the things that make them great.