How Cities Aid Ambition

I have kept this interesting piece on my browser for about a week now and just got to read through it a short while ago. It reminds me of the thinking on whether culture determine entrepreneurship or economic development. Coming to the article, the author who is obviously well-travelled across major European and north America cities, presents a very incisive understanding of the city-level culture and how this shapes the dominant professional clusters.

Worthy of reading for oneself, I am still struck by the keenness of the author in assessing what a city is bound to be best at and the distinctions drawn between cities in California, Cambridge (US),New York and Paris. Whether one agrees with the fact that Cambridge has cut for itself a niche in producing ideas on account of the existence of the "Intellectual Hub" while New York is best at cultivating interest in personal grooming and financial power, is less important than the ability to divide cities and make a coherent case for what they represent.

In all the most potent statement is the contrast between New York and Silicon Valley as it presents the central thesis of the article. Cities truly speak for something that every curious traveller should try to figure out. Here is the bold claim:

"Power matters in New York too of course, but New York is pretty impressed by a billion dollars even if you merely inherited it. In Silicon Valley no one would care except a few real estate agents. What matters in Silicon Valley is how much effect you have on the world. The reason people there care about Larry and Sergey is not their wealth but the fact that they control Google, which affects practically everyone."


HT: Ben Casnocha