by PaulHoule | 2025-06-05 16:14:12+00:00
There is an unchallenged assumption too that more people could move to cities like San Francisco, NY and LA and would be able to be more productive. I mean, Hollywood doesn't seem to have the problem that it doesn't have enough labor, it has problems connecting to audiences. If the Bay Area has an advantage over other areas it is that it is willing to invest $25 billion in Uber without a return, nobody else would have funded Facebook. Sure there is a lot of talent but try to use Facebook or Instagram it is a shoddy experience from onboarding forward -- I'm amazed at how much more pleasant it is to post photos on unfunded Mastodon in comparison and think, gee, if you got the best web devs from Minnesota to remake Meta's sites it would be an improvement.

The biotech/medical cluster around Boston is an example. On some level it is a high productivity cluster and in my mind it seems harder to disperse than those around any of those other cities. Politically though, many Americans don't see it as lifesaving and economically vibrant but part of a scam that makes Americans pay radically more for medicine than other countries, no wonder a lot of people like RFK Jr.

Another interesting puzzle is that these highly productive cities attract a population of people who don't seem to benefit from being there. Like, I go to NYC because I have an invitation by a friend and I go to a free conference where I get to meet people from Swift/DTCC, Blockchain startups, etc. I imagined if I lived there I would go to things like that all the time and I would find opportunities. When I work in NYC I see lots of black people in the subway and at street level but once I go up the elevator they disappear. Finance is an industry where you think anyone who can, say, trade commodities successfully, could find a place, but black people in NYC just don't though it seems you find everybody else in that industry.

People who grow up poor in NYC are often terribly cynical because they see skyscrapers float in the air with no visible means of support and will frequently tell you the whole economy is a scam, there ain't no making it, everything is about power, and vote in state reps who want to subsidize off-track betting to save jobs.

Up until the Reagan/Thatcher revolution there was a growing sentiment that urban areas were becoming unmanagable and that it was a problem that France was dominated by Paris, that the UK is dominated by London, that Japan was dominated by Tokyo. Maybe the fear it would all get blown up in a nuclear war was part of it, but it was also seen as politically untenable. I'd point out this book

https://www.amazon.com/Dispersing-Population-James-L-Sundqui...

from 1975. After Thatcher though it was seen that the capital cities were in competition to the death and no way London could give up 1% of efficiency for other social benefits. Trouble is that people who don't live in London vote so that turned out to be the road to Brexit.

Looking at California's problems I sometimes wonder if it is getting "full", particularly California has terrible problems with air pollution despite the toughest regulations and best technology in the world. It's a lot of people, using a lot of energy, growing a lot of food, with significant challenges because of intense sunlight and natural hydrocarbon emissions. That terrible air pollution is despite significant efforts dealing with it, and population is a variable to influence that's more certain than, say, switching dump trucks and combine harvesters from diesel fuel to DME.