Chronic. It is often claimed that the digital allows you to spread the economic activities in the area by facilitating distance working and virtual interactions. The reality is exactly opposite : the more the economy becomes digital, the more the population is concentrated in large cities, and the higher the real estate prices are on the rise.
one of The authors that illuminate this phenomenon is Enrico Moretti, an economist at the university of California, Berkeley, and author of The New Geography of Jobs (Mariner Books, 2013, non-translated). His book opens with a vivid description of Detroit, the cradle of the american auto industry.
in The Twentieth century, millions of people have moved to the vicinity of the city of Michigan, to be closer to what was at the time the engine of the economy : the factories. Not that the majority of Americans have worked at the time on the assembly lines, far from it, but the factories were at the heart of a prosperous economy local services. Of the companies settled, to provide services to the factories themselves ; others were developed to serve the engineers and the skilled workers who lived not far away. An entire ecosystem was in balance. The plant generates productivity gains, which were partially reinvested in the local economy, creating the majority of jobs in services.
today, Detroit is going through a profound crisis and sustainable. She has been deserted by many of its inhabitants since the crisis of 2008. But the structural reason for this exodus is the marginalization of plants in the economy. Most of them have been outsourced for a long time, where labor, land, energy and health-care cost less. Especially, the factories of today are largely automated. Because they do not employ many people, they do not lead to more creations massive…