INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
There are few things certain in our world except for the uplifting tendencies of technology
change primarily for the better
Pittsburgh, for example, had a plan to become a tech city back in the early 1990s after seeing the value coming out of Carnegie Mellon and
the other universities in town
Anecdotally, Pittsburgh remained a fairly depressed steel town until at least 2000
to an influx of tech money
Next to halls named after dead and gone thinkers and makers was the Gates building, built with the largesse of the biggest tech maker in
Then Uber moved in and all hell broke loose
In 1997 the Lawrenceville neighborhood was a rundown riverfront redoubt full of brown fields and finely-made hovels
team of boosters who invite you to dine in a spot once associated with dive bars and non-ironic pierogi
A few weeks ago I enjoyed Nashville hot chicken and Manhattans in what was once a funeral home for steel workers.In short, having tech
to a place and almost inevitably improve it
In some cases this creative class is disparate, spreading throughout a city like a symbiotic fungus
In other places they are centered in a single neighborhood, working their magic from the core out
mightily to turn a city in ruin into a place to live.And I understand that all is not rosy in the world urban growth
Uber drivers in creative-classed cities are usually people displaced from their cheap rents by rich hipsters
As a friend noted, when you gentrify a place where do those who cannot afford artisanal kombucha, let alone the rent, go They are either
they exist in plain sight
Nowhere is this clearer then in the refuse-strewn streets of San Francisco.Yet cities with deep, systemic problems still debase themselves
They offer tax abatements, $1 land leases, and produce cloying videos to prove that they, alone, are the hardest working of the bunch
The first and most galling effort appeared when Foxconn, a massive manufacturing company, promised to land like an alien invasion force in
As it had in Brazil before, Foxconn promised more than it could ever deliver
From a Reuters report:Foxconn has created only a small fraction of the 100,000 jobs that the government projected, and most of the work is
In the end these true manufacturing jobs will end up going to countries with historically cheap labor pools and Foxconn will use its tax
breaks to build a facilities in the US to help it abate future cross-border taxes
flatscreens off of an assembly line for years
Gone are the days of ubiquitous middle class manufacturing jobs and they will never come back
Self-driving car companies are aimed at reducing the number of inefficient truckers on the road
Drone companies are aimed at reducing the number of inefficient postal carriers on the sidewalk
And always-on audio assistants and smart devices are there to reduce our dependence on nearly every facet of a local ecosystem including the
local weatherperson, the chef with an empty restaurant but hundreds of Seamless orders, and the local cinema
They know that when they land in a place they take over, much like Wal-Mart did in its early heyday
The benefits of this takeover are myriad but the erosion of culture they bring is catastrophic
Yet mayors still don silly hats and dance a merry jig to get them to move to their blighted areas
It got Uber because it built one of the best robotics programs in the country
They became tech hubs because they became places that techies wanted to congregate and they built networks of technologists who left their
cubicles on a weekly basis and met for lunch
The network effects created by this are manifold
An ecosystem cannot thrive if its most successful hide
Just ask Detroit.Cities must subsidize creative districts, not creative destruction
Cities must woo technologists with a network of rich angels, not bribery
Every city has its accelerators full of potential failure
These companies quickly discover that without seed capital, St
Louis or Chicago might as well be the Death Valley
Detroit has worked hard to create a startup culture and it seems to be working but in many cases these startups are assimilated, Borg-like
into Quicken Loans and cannot stand on their own
The south is stuck in energy production and invests little in things that would draw technologists to the beautiful cities along the
coast.Maybe this is because startups make no money
Maybe this is because innovation is expensive
And maybe the lack of long-term strategy exists because mayoral staffs turn over so quickly in these convoluted times
These are valid excuses but woe betide the city that clings to them.New York and Virginia got HQ2 because their cultures are mercenary at
worst and transient at best
They already knew the hard bargain of technology versus culture and were willing to make the deal
other city will claim those benefits (and detriments.) Tech is a business
to drink free nitro coffee
It bypasses places that are seemingly entrenched in political infighting and failed innovation and it will continue to do so until cities do
for themselves what Amazon will never do: future-proof their place in the world and create a place for generations to grow and change.Photo
by Michael Browning on Unsplash
