| Agree. This paper is just another attempt at modelling economies of agglomeration. It's a pretty well-studied bit of urban economics. This paper just sounds a little socially tone-deaf. The paper's primary policy points appear to be, using quotes from the paper: 1) CNR workers work better in "cognitive hubs" that specialise in this type of work. 2) "The main culprit of spatial misallocation is the existence of large occupation-specific externalities combined with potential distortions due to land use regulations." 3) Small towns are misguided in trying to lure "tech" to their cities, and should instead find a non-CNR industry to concentrate on that is not already concentrated in a specific city. ("the economics of the problem suggest that, with the appropriate transfers, small industrial cities in the U.S. should attract non-CNR workers and not try to become the next San Jose. The concentration of CNR workers in a few “cognitive hubs” should be encouraged, not scorned.") 4) CNR cities should be subsidizing non-CNR workers outside of the hub, at a UBI (wealth transfer) to non-CNR workers of about $17,000 a year per worker. ("CNR workers, who earn substantially more, end up paying a base transfer of $16,856. One interpretation of this base transfer is that of a 'universal basic income' paid to all non-CNR workers.") We can distill this further, to: a. In general, CNR workers work better around other CNR workers due to positive externalities of location. I think this is tough to deny, with SF/the Valley for tech, NYC for finance, LA for entertainment, Shenzhen for hardware manufacturing, et cetera. b. We should be removing any restrictions that stop this cycle from growing, from land use regulations, to stopping incentives and funding to small towns to create their own 'tech hubs', to just straight paying people to leave the city that are not part of that industry and stay out. It's the latter part of this everyone seems to be latching onto, however it's pretty common in economics to just model incentives as direct quantifiable costs. This also explains what is happening in the Bay Area right now: "Otherwise, cognitive hubs might use other indirect means of pushing out non-CNR workers such as, for example, housing supply constraints, zoning restrictions, or a lack of investment in transportation networks to aid commuting. Such efforts can generate occupational polarization across space without Pareto gains for all workers." |