Cities – Christopher Wink

The New Geography of Jobs

In 1979, Seattle and Albuquerque were comparable regions, in population, in reputation and industry.

That year, young Bill Gates and team moved their fledgling computer company Microsoft back home to Seattle — and that changed everything. A generation later, Albuquerque native Jeff Bezos decided to move his own early ecommerce company Amazon to Seattle because Microsoft built an ecosystem there. Today, Seattle is a top-tier innovation economy, by my news organization’s own measure, and Albuquerque isn’t even on the map.

Where once regional economies sought physical capital, they now pursue human capital, and there’s a flywheel effect for people even more than the agglomeration effects of industry. So argues the influential 2012 book The New Geography of Jobs, written by economist Enrico Moretti.

This matters because like manufacturing in the 20th century, the knowledge sector is the driver of the economy today. All those “tradable jobs” create all the non-tradable ones that follow. Put another way, if you lcoate a tech firm or manufacturing plant in a town, then a Walmart will follow — but not the other way. All those productive workers make everyone else more productive too, for three big reasons: complementarity, better technology and externalities.

Globalization was supposed to mean “the world was flat” Instead, geography matters even more. Below find my notes for future reference.

Walkable City by Jeff Speck

Our built environment is killing us — sprawl contributes to obesity and cars are lethal. Despite all the politically charged crime narratives, car driving makes suburbs less safe than cities.

Urban planners can do something about it, and they know the solutions. But old habits die hard — of free parking and wide drivable streets. Change the narrative.

That’s from the influential 2012 book by urban planner Jeff Speck called “Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time.” The book was part of a wave of research and urban championing that empowered a new generation of policymakers, designers, planners and community leaders. I’ve long seen it referenced by other authors I read, and the publisher released a 10th anniversary issue, so I finally circled back and read this well-regarded read.

The reissue was mostly the original book, though it included a new preface and other updates, including pandemic references. I dug into the treacherous claims about safety and where we live, which are personal and messy — because we’re more often scared of sharks and burglars than car crashes and obesity, the far more prevalent threats to our well-being.

To pick up Speck’s claims: About 25,000 people were murdered in the United States last year, according to the CDC — and of course that’s not all in cities. Nearly 40,000 people die in cars each year, though that isn’t all in the suburbs either. More directly to Speck’s point, as many as 500,000 American deaths each year may be attributed to obesity-related causes, according to one respected analysis, which are far more prevalent among people who don’t do much walking. Altogether, Americans are dying in rural places faster than urban ones, according to a 2022 analysis.

Whatever the case, Speck contributed to a foundation of urbanist thinking a decade ago, and I dug into the work. Below I share my notes for future reference.

Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World

Barring radical technological advancements, population and even economic growth may reverse by mid century.

A host of strategies for shrinking cities are clear: greener space, urban agriculture, shared community spaces, cheaper housing, smaller community-based schools, telemedicine and more exist. Less carbon intensive shared resources are possible. But there are psychological, and therefore political, barriers to overcome.

“Each city will have to make a momentous choice between two diametrically opposed paths. They can follow the path of least resistance, remain caught in the globalization trap and face a likely future of progressive decline; or they can build a new, brighter future, based on a localized economy, while using existing emerging technology to remain network with the wider world.”

That’s from urbanist-author Alan Mallach’s 2023 book “Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World: Learning to Thrive Without Growth.”

With zero immigration, the United States will have declining population by 2034, per census projections. The UN expects global population to decline by 2100 for the first time since reliable estimates began. I’ve been interested in this topic, informing a recent story of mine and a longterm-future project I led last year. Mallach’s advice to local leaders: Reduce the dependence on a global world but still participate in it

Below I share my notes for future reference.

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

For every $10 spent on goods and services in the American economy, at least a dollar is spent in the “underground economy.” That share has trended up over the last 15 years and two recessions.

That $2.5 trillion in economic activity includes both licit and illicit activities — yes, paying the babysitter cash and buying an illegal gun are both in the underground economy. Poorer nations have higher rates, and likewise, poorer communities in the United States rely more heavily on the informal economy.

Contributing to the academic analysis, American sociologist and ethnographer Sudhir Venkatesh published in 2006 a book called Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor. Backed by years he spent visiting a particular poor neighborhood in Chicago, he chronicled the interpersonal and community dynamics that related to and developed its underground economy. In some ways the book shows its age (as a trivial example, his use of the word “ghetto” feels dated), but in other ways it remains a small, specific window into one community’s underground economy.

“The underground enables poor communities to survive but can lead to their alienation from the wider world,” as the author wrote.

Another of his points I especially liked: “What some might see as a mass of Americans lying about, and out of work, is in many cases an ensemble of persons who lack of private places where they can rest.”

The author renamed his characters and locations for anonymity, but generally follows a neighborhood he calls Maquis Park, including characters like a particular gang leader and an active block leader named Eunice. Below find my notes from the book for future reference.

Gentrification is believing you are ‘Year Zero’: 100% Philadelphia at FringeArts

Neighborhoods and cities always change. Concerns about gentrification come when that change happens with such speed that those new to a place don’t even realize a community predates them.

After a special performance of 100% Philadelphia, something like an on-stage census map with real-life residents, at FringeArts, I was part of a panel discussing the issues the production brought up. The performance has been organized around the world. In each case, 100 residents of that city were selected to represent the dynamics of that place — race, location, income, politics, etc. Throughout the show, the residents are given prompted questions and move about stage to help give an in-person sense of thoughts on issues, both local and human-wide.

It brought thoughts to mind for me.

Continue reading Gentrification is believing you are ‘Year Zero’: 100% Philadelphia at FringeArts

How Spring Street could thrive: survival for small towns in a new urban age

Newton is a small town in the northwest corner of New Jersey, where preserved forests, protected open space and state-backed farm land has curtailed suburbanization to maintain the foundation of what could be a thriving community in an urban age. It has a dense Main Street corridor and the anchor institutions of a 250-year-old town, as a gateway to this beautiful rural region. It also happens to be where I grew up.

Elsewhere in Sussex County, there are lake houses and golf courses that attract vacationers and tourists (and reporters) from the New York City market — that’s where my parents and other families came from. Though I believe there are unique assets, I also think this story is one that will relate to communities throughout the country and certainly elsewhere in the U.S. Northeast.

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5 transit ideas I want all cities to embrace

I like cities and I like transit.

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Why I think this parklet is misguided and other thoughts on parking

frc-parklet

This is a photo of a parklet outside of my office in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia. Parklets are essentially raised platforms put in parking spots meant to offer pedestrian-friendly seating in dense city communities. They also become something of a rallying cry for anti-car urbanism, by taking something for an automobile and giving it to pedestrians.

I am a pedestrian — I bicycle to work and use mass transit whenever I don’t. What’s more is that I sit in this parklet a lot. I benefit from it plenty — it’s very pretty — and I like and use parklets throughout Philadelphia. I think the parklet movement is a cool one. That said, I also think this particular parklet’s placement is misguided.

Continue reading Why I think this parklet is misguided and other thoughts on parking

Attract and retain new young, educated people but keep our cities distinctive [Knight Milennials]

knight-millenials

Cities want to attract and retain young educated talent to fuel their knowledge economies, drive a tax base and create a community that can continue to grow by welcoming more new people in the future. Modern markets are insatiable and indefinitely incomplete.

That’s the clearest, simplest mission I can glean from all the chirping about celebrating gains Philadelphia has made in its old brain drain problem.

But last week at a Knight Foundation session with the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, I wanted to push that thinking forward in two ways that I don’t think I hear often enough in that conversation: (a) the idea that too much change can in effect take away what is distinctive about a city and (b) that any real success would improve the lives of existing Philadelphians too, not just push them out like in other cities.

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Puritan Boston, Quaker Philadelphia: notes on 1979 research from E. Digby Baltzell

baltzell-1970 — Sociologist E. Digby Baltzell. Photo from Penn Collection. Circa 1970.

Boston was built by Puritans, who celebrated civic power and class authority. Philadelphia was built by Quakers, who championed equality and deference.

Two hundred fifty years later, though considerably fewer people in those cities consider themselves a member of either group, their impact is still chiefly responsible for Boston outperforming and Philadelphia underperforming in their contributions to the greater world.

That’s the chief argument of the dense, heavily-researched, 500-page, 1979 academic classic Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia, written by University of Pennsylvania sociologist E. Digby Baltzell (1915–1996). The core of the book is said to be based on some 300 interviews with Proper Philadelphians and Brahmin Bostonians, and part of a decades-long research focus that Baltzell had on his Protestant brethren — he has been sometimes credited with popularizing the “WASP” term.

This is a book that is a fabulous read for understanding Philadelphia and Boston, but it is also a treasure for those who love new perspectives on American culture, U.S. history and the development of cities.

Continue reading Puritan Boston, Quaker Philadelphia: notes on 1979 research from E. Digby Baltzell