‘So, why did most people want to move to the city? It seems like the same lure as today: freedom from a set life pattern and higher urban wages.’
If we focus on immigrants without specialized skills, the biggest draw tends to be economic opportunity: Life is hard, and people tend to move in migratory patterns, following the trail left by friends and family. Some have better character than others. A few incentives might be enough (subsidized housing, lax punishment on labor laws, cousin got a job etc.).
Go down to the docks, or the restaurants by the tracks, and ask for Pedro or Ricky or Chiang, and they don’t ask too many questions if you show up on time.
For more highly educated and skilled migrants, it’s still the economy, stupid. The specific skills means these folks compete directly for higher wage jobs. If your industry is centered in a foreign country (say, tech in the U.S.), then some mixture of necessity, opportunity, ambition means you go where the jobs are.
Some have better character than others, but the barriers to entry usually indicate what employers want and used to seek in a college degree: Specific marketable and in-demand skills, along with some degree of regulated emotions and internal motivation. Technology in the U.S. has seen a huge increase in East Asian (Chinese, mostly) and South Asian (Indians mostly) in the past fifteen years. Both of these civilizations are producing a surplus of talented engineering and data science talent.
Go talk to Ron and/or Chiang and/or Kulwinder when you’re applying for the Data Engineer II position. Pull your weight and add value, and you might be able to build a life. Your goal may be full integration (raise the kids as Americans and die here), or it may be a four-year stint and return home, or some hazy mix in-between.
For Americans moving from small towns to big cities, of course, it’s still the economy, stupid. If you’re homegrown, you already speak the language, already have citizenship and a fatter tightrope to walk. Even if you have no money and prospects, you’ll likely have a softer landing than a foreigner. Some of us Americans have better character than others.
Oh don’t worry, our politicians will claim to look out for you, but it will now much more resemble a Euro-type model (more politicians controlling the money supply).
‘People moving to the city have been illogical risk takers from the beginning. and the key is probably they like the sexual or mating opportunities inherent in large groups. Playing to that angle would bring in hipsters and gays. As to whether that’s the key to the health of cities or our nation, I doubt it, but it won’t hurt, especially because one of the best ways of making a city fun to go out in is that it’s safe for young women.’
A lot of tall, smart, ambitious guys, and beautiful, smart, ambitious women gravitate towards Manhattan, for example.
Richard Florida suggested this trend, of hipster and gay migration, attached to a ‘knowledge’ class, is the way forward for American cities; It’s SoHo/NYU/Wall Street all the way down, baby. I suspect there is a pretty Left-Of-Center political philosophy under there with a lot of ‘class’ analysis and obsession with income inequality.
As I see the world, this tends to follow the Left-Of-Center model which ultimately resolves to something like ‘whatever-you’re-for-we’re-against’. You get good music, art, food and museums out of this model, but a lot of crime, chaos and corruption. The knowledge claims are questionable, especially when it comes to ‘intellectuals’ and ‘theory’. It’s usually no place to raise a kid, grow old, nor have much stability (stability grows in rings around the city). This view also tends to over-value creativity and the arts, championing liberation over liberty, redistribution over wealth creation, and making education/health-care the highest goods in the City.
I’d been wondering about the cultural angle: The hipsters were a third round of generally youthful rebellion (post-beat, post-hippie), fueled by a counter-culture ethos heavily invested in the Arts, individualism to the point of semi-nihilism, while harboring radical tendencies. There is a natural desire to break with the more traditional and religious models of organization typically found in small towns and rural areas, and also to follow the ‘Zeitgeist’ towards racial and ethnic diversity in meritocratic and multicultural harmony.
The New York Times seems hyperbolically invested in this model, metamorphosing into something like ‘The Guardian’ in London (a few idealists–>lots of activists–>a few radicals). This is to say nothing of the political corruption for which big cities like New York and Chicago are typically known. Big-city political machines were the way to a better life for most of those immigrant groups thrown into the pot, but they are also notoriously corrupt, full of clientalism and machine pols.
This leaves cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburg still floating out there, unable to live off the fat of trade and finance, immigration and cheap labor, museums and tourism. The more left-leaning they are, the more likely to prioritize anti-corporate bias. The lost industrial base, along with the lack of a strong knowledge-based economy leaves them with a brain-drain and difficult prospects.
Are energy, agriculture, low taxes and a strong private sector enough? What about the cultural shifts going on?
Interesting reads: Predictions are hard, especially about the future.
Virginia Postrel here:
‘As I have argued elsewhere, there are two competing models of successful American cities. One encourages a growing population, fosters a middle-class, family-centered lifestyle, and liberally permits new housing. It used to be the norm nationally, and it still predominates in the South and Southwest. The other favors long-term residents, attracts highly productive, work-driven people, focuses on aesthetic amenities, and makes it difficult to build. It prevails on the West Coast, in the Northeast and in picturesque cities such as Boulder, Colorado and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The first model spurs income convergence, the second spurs economic segregation. Both create cities that people find desirable to live in, but they attract different sorts of residents.’
Joel Kotkin. Omaha vs. San Francisco?:
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Walter Russell Mead takes a look at the blue model (the old progressive model) from the ground up in NYC to argue that it’s simply not working. Check out his series at The American Interest. Technology is changing things rapidly, and maybe, as Charles Murray points out, it’s skewing the field toward high IQ positions while simultaneously getting rid of industrial, managerial, clerical, labor intensive office jobs. Even so, we can’t cling to the past. This is quite a progressive vision but one that embraces change boldly. Repost-Via Youtube: Conversations With History – Walter Russell Mead
The Hoover Institution Via Youtube: Charles Murray On ‘Coming Apart’
Once you take apart the old structure, you have to criticize the meritocracy you’ve helped create: David Brooks At The NY Times: ‘Why Our Elites Stink’
Monday Quotation From Charles Kesler And A Few Thoughts on Conservatism
Related On This Site: Cities should be magnets for creativity and culture? –From The Atlantic: Richard Florida On The Decline Of The Blue-Collar Man…From Grist.Org Via The New Republic Via The A & L Daily: ‘Getting Past “Ruin Porn” In Detroit’… some people don’t want you to have the economic freedom to live in the suburbs: From Foreign Policy: ‘Urban Legends, Why Suburbs, Not Cities, Are The Answer’
