How do you raise incomes when your state's economic appeal is based on low costs? That's the basic conundrum facing a number of red states. They rightly talk about their cost climate, touting tax rates and such. But the biggest component of cost for many businesses is labor. Being a low cost state is tantamount to being a low wage one in many cases. A recent workforce survey from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce highlights this dilmmea. Some key findings: Applicants not willing to accept pay offered (45% agree or strongly agree). … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2017
Urban Talent Sheds Say a Lot About Cities
Jim Russell pointed me as the workforce report program that LinkedIn runs. They use their data to show trends in 20 major job markets. For each market they track, they put together a map of the 10 cities that market gains the most workers from and the ten in loses the most workers too. These are interesting maps in their own right. They also highlight the extremely parochial nature of the talent flows into Midwestern cities. It's pretty stark, actually. Here's a set of comparisons, looking strictly at inflows. There are also outflow and … [Read more...]
The Shortage of “A” Talent
To restate, the biggest challenge facing many cities in transitioning to the knowledge economy is a shortage of “A” talent, especially true superstars. I dealt with superstars like Jeff Bezos in my last post. Today I talk about "A" caliber talent. What's the difference between the two? It's arguably a continuum in some respects, or depends on how finely grained the domain. But the superstars are the true world's best, particularly at something that generates economic growth at regional scale. But beyond those rare few, there's also a … [Read more...]
The Superstar Gap
The biggest challenge facing many cities in transitioning to the knowledge economy is a shortage of "A" talent, especially true superstars. All "talent" isn't created equal. Crude measures such as the percentage of a region with college degrees, or even graduate degrees, don't fully capture this. It is disproporationately the top performers, the "A" players and superstars that make things happen. Sections of the knowledge economy have long been geared to superstars. Economist Enrico Moretti cites research on biotech hubs, in which he … [Read more...]
How Does Housing Stock Affect Urban Revitalization?
The second of Pete Saunders' nine reasons why Detroit failed is "poor housing stock," particularly its overweighting towards small, early postwar cottages. Here's a sample: Here's what Pete had to say: Detroit may be well-known for its so-called ruins, but much of the city is relentlessly covered with small, Cape Cod-style, 3-bedroom and one-bath single family homes on slabs that are not in keeping with contemporary standards for size and quality.....The truth, however, is that Detroit may have one of the greatest concentrations of … [Read more...]
The Silicon Valley Mindset
The tech industry is one of the most powerful entities affecting our world. But who are these people? And what do they believe and how do they think about the world? A couple of recent articles provide a window into this. Rationalist Demographics The first is a set of demographics from the reader survey (unscientific, but with 5500 respondents) of the popular blog Slate Star Codex. SSC is the web site of Scott Alexander, pen name of a Midwest psychiatrist. It's explicitly associated with the Rationalist movement and especially the Less Wrong … [Read more...]