Excerpts:
“THE HISTORY OF human progress is intimately intertwined with that of cities.”
“Boyd’s research shows the close relationship between toolmaking advances and population size. As people gathered into larger groups and came into contact with one another more frequently, knowledge was shared, retained, and advanced more easily”
“As highly skilled people concentrate in these places, the rate of innovation accelerates, new businesses are created, and productivity—and, ultimately, pay—grows. Wages generally increase with city size, as opportunities for specialization and interaction multiply. Pay for manufacturing workers tends to rise above the national average, for instance, as communities grow beyond 120,000 people.”
“Jobs requiring physical skill cluster in small and medium-size metro areas—industrial centers where land for factories is relatively inexpensive. Jobs featuring analytic skill are sparse in these places, and heavily concentrated in larger metro areas—indicating the rising benefits of having high numbers of well-educated, highly intelligent people working close together. And jobs requiring the highest level of social skill are the most concentrated in the very largest metro areas—where, combined with the high prevalence of analytic skill, they underpin faster rates of innovation and growth”
Link to article with a great skills map:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/where-the-skills-are/8628/
