What Happens When the Richest US Cities Turn to the World?

[10023]

This is a theme that I've seen for a long time. We're in a new age of city-states, or should be...

What Happens When the Richest U.S. Cities Turn to the World?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/u...cal-links.html


Apologies for not posting text, I'm posting from an iPhone.

[dc_denizen]

hmm, what does 'turn to the world' mean? Are Miami, New York, SF not globalized enough yet?

[jd3189]

I feel that Miami is the most overt "international" city in the US.

Even NYC and LA, with their large immigrant populations, still have an "American" feel that encompasses their entire culture and business atmosphere. Same with SF and the Bay Area.

Miami, more so now, functions and continues to grow rapidly in influence because of Cubans, other Latin Americans, and Europeans. Those people essentially rule the city and put the most money into it.

[10023]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

hmm, what does 'turn to the world' mean? Are Miami, New York, SF not globalized enough yet?

It means looking even moreso to peer cities around the world, rather than their own hinterlands.

This is the world today. A New Yorker or Londoner (myself included) has more friends and contacts in Shanghai or Buenos Aires than in Illinois (outside of Chicago) or the north of England.

The world is increasingly a network of cities, not countries. Outside of cities, and I mean major cities, nothing of consequence really happens.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by 10023

It means looking even moreso to peer cities around the world, rather than their own hinterlands.

This is the world today. A New Yorker or Londoner (myself included) has more friends and contacts in Shanghai or Buenos Aires than in Illinois (outside of Chicago) or the north of England.

The world is increasingly a network of cities, not countries. Outside of cities, and I mean major cities, nothing of consequence really happens.

I think that's incorrect.

Many major cities have become too expensive except as housing for a globalized class of rich financialized people. See: Vancouver, London, etc. Many of this nouveau riche class hail from the developing world, and oftentimes display a shocking lack of class and refinement, along with a taste for a gaudy, materialistic lifestyle.

The real science, art and culture of consequence today is often being produced in non-globalized cities and towns, where housing is far cheaper and financial markets are not the focal point of life and happiness.

[iheartthed]

I don't think I agree that being globally connected means prosperity. Detroit has a very globally connected economy and is obviously not the picture of prosperity. I think the key to whether or not your city is doing good is how connected it is to the information economy.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

I don't think I agree that being globally connected means prosperity. Detroit has a very globally connected economy and is obviously not the picture of prosperity. I think the key to whether or not your city is doing good is how connected it is to the information economy.

Nothing about this comment makes any sense.

[10023]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

I think that's incorrect.

Many major cities have become too expensive except as housing for a globalized class of rich financialized people. See: Vancouver, London, etc. Many of this nouveau riche class hail from the developing world, and oftentimes display a shocking lack of class and refinement, along with a taste for a gaudy, materialistic lifestyle.

The real science, art and culture of consequence today is often being produced in non-globalized cities and towns, where housing is far cheaper and financial markets are not the focal point of life and happiness.

That depends how you define consequence. A lot of consequence happens in university towns, if we're talking about things that actually lead to human progress. I was using it in a different sense, referring to the intersection of wealth and power.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

The real science, art and culture of consequence today is often being produced in non-globalized cities and towns, where housing is far cheaper and financial markets are not the focal point of life and happiness.

Art and culture has pretty much always been the product of the surplus wealth of the rich and it still is. It's not an accident that San Francisco has an orchestra, a ballet company, and an opera company among the top 5 nationally and arguably #2 after New York in some of those categories (which is pretty good for a city 1/10 the size of New York). It's true because its cutural institutions are still solvent . . . because its wealthy citizens contribute. In fact, places like Detroit and Cleveland could have said the same when they were rich based on manufacturing, but those days are past (Detroit was even thinking of selling its art collection, amassed in the hayday, to pay off some of its debt--I don't recall if it actually did).

Science tends to be different because it's often the product of universities put where they are by individual wealthy donors. I went to one--Duke--that was established in a nowhere burg in North Carolina on the whim of the richest family in that state who got rich off of its dominant industry. But that one family wasn't rich enough to also make Durham a hub of culture and art which it certainly wasn't during the period of my schooling.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Art and culture has pretty much always been the product of the surplus wealth of the rich and it still is. It's not an accident that San Francisco has an orchestra, a ballet company, and an opera company among the top 5 nationally and arguably #2 after New York in some of those categories (which is pretty good for a city 1/10 the size of New York). It's true because its cutural institutions are still solvent . . . because its wealthy citizens contribute. In fact, places like Detroit and Cleveland could have said the same when they were rich based on manufacturing, but those days are past (Detroit was even thinking of selling its art collection, amassed in the hayday, to pay off some of its debt--I don't recall if it actually did).

Science tends to be different because it's often the product of universities put where they are by individual wealthy donors. I went to one--Duke--that was established in a nowhere burg in North Carolina on the whim of the richest family in that state who got rich off of its dominant industry. But that one family wasn't rich enough to also make Durham a hub of culture and art which it certainly wasn't during the period of my schooling.

RE: The bolded.

The terms in the Grand Bargain called for a lien to be placed on the art collection in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

The city still owns it technically, but if it fails to meet its agreed-upon obligations with the creditors, they can repossess it.

BTW, interesting fact: Most people don't know that Detroit (outside of NYC) has the largest publicly-owned art museum in the country.

[the urban politician]

..

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

It's true because its cutural institutions are still solvent . . . because its wealthy citizens contribute. In fact, places like Detroit and Cleveland could have said the same when they were rich based on manufacturing, but those days are past (Detroit was even thinking of selling its art collection, amassed in the hayday, to pay off some of its debt--I don't recall if it actually did).

The reason the collection is still there is the continued wealth of the region and its foundations/donations to the museum, there are no "past" days. The city has little to do with it and has no right to sell the collection in the first place since it is held by the DIA in public trust, it was never taken to court though.

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by 10023

A New Yorker or Londoner (myself included) has more friends and contacts in Shanghai or Buenos Aires than in Illinois (outside of Chicago) or the north of England.

The idea that most New Yorkers or Londoners are like this is laughable. I, living in Baltimore, have more friends in Mililani or Harrogate or Fayetteville than I do on the Eastern Shore or Maryland Panhandle. But I'm not silly enough to think that's commonplace.

[10023]

Originally Posted by cannedairspray

The idea that most New Yorkers or Londoners are like this is laughable. I, living in Baltimore, have more friends in Mililani or Harrogate or Fayetteville than I do on the Eastern Shore or Maryland Panhandle. But I'm not silly enough to think that's commonplace.

My most NYers or Londoners. But a fair number of the ones that make NY or London what they are. People involved in business, finance or culture are more likely to move between New York and London than New York and Omaha, or London and Sheffield.

[cannedairspray]

Originally Posted by 10023

My most NYers or Londoners. But a fair number of the ones that make NY or London what they are. People involved in business, finance or culture are more likely to move between New York and London than New York and Omaha, or London and Sheffield.

That's now a totally different thing, though. "People who make it what it is"

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by 10023

My most NYers or Londoners. But a fair number of the ones that make NY or London what they are. People involved in business, finance or culture are more likely to move between New York and London than New York and Omaha, or London and Sheffield.

Yeah but what percentage of the population of these cities falls into this category? And of that percentage how many of them are from one of these "global cities" and not from Manchester or Des Moines or Stuttgart or some other more regional place that they will continue to return to throughout their lives?

Great cities have always been collectors of specialized talent, that's why they exist. The notion that these specialists will sequester themselves in these places and that somehow that makes these places cloistered amongst themselves is absurd. The people you speak of make up no more than a small percentage of the population of these cities with the vast vast majority of the denizens being immigrants from much more regional locales whether national or international. Those people remain much more tied to their homelands than you make them out to be. Even the globetrotting elites remain tied to their homelands, just think of how many of them are begrudgingly trekking back to Omaha for the holidays right now. The idea that this class of people somehow ties international cities more closely to one another than the vast "hinterlands" that surround them smacks of total disconnection with the reality that these elites live in. That bubble isn't geographic surrounding each of these cities, it extends no further than a halo surrounding the heads of those dim enough to believe such things. The other 99% of the population would laugh if they heard it.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by 10023

It means looking even moreso to peer cities around the world, rather than their own hinterlands.

This is the world today. A New Yorker or Londoner (myself included) has more friends and contacts in Shanghai or Buenos Aires than in Illinois (outside of Chicago) or the north of England.

The world is increasingly a network of cities, not countries. Outside of cities, and I mean major cities, nothing of consequence really happens.

Somehow i doubt New Yorkers or Londoners are more connected to people in Shanghai or wherever abroad than those in their own country. People in London most likely more well rounded and broader connected than someone from Corby but unless they're born abroad, most likely still tied to home first.

[Capsicum]

Small towns in theory could do this too. For example a while back I heard about how some Georgia town found a market in manufacturing and selling chopsticks to China since wood was abundant in forested Georgia but hard to come by in China.

An American small town with a successful industry can still in theory bypass trade with a big city to trade with an international partner just like a big city can bypass the small town to trade internationally.

[Centropolis]

i think city-states are the most natural economic arrangement across the world and across time since the rise of recorded civilisation. many american states don't make any sense as economic units, and often their governors don't properly represent the most critical business interests in the states located in the cities, and putter around a lot with rural special interests for political reasons.

my london based company tried arranging our u.s. operations into state units and it lasted about a month, and nobody abided by it because it was a joke...

it's cities that talk to each other across the world in business...i'm dealing with say adelaide for a specific reason pertaining to that city or something near it (or some specialization). very often i do turn to people in far flung non-u.s. cities for technical expertise, not the next city over.

i'm drunk so this kind of fell flat but yes it should be all city-states.

[Pedestrian]

SAN FRANCISCO — Well before anyone thought of this place as the center of the tech economy, the Bay Area built ships. And it did so with the help of many parts of the country.

Douglas fir trees logged in the Pacific Northwest were turned into lumber schooners here. Steel from the East, brought in by railroad, became merchant vessels. During World War II, workers assembled battleships with parts from across the country: steam turbines from Schenectady, N.Y., and Lester, Pa.; gear winches from Tacoma, Wash.; radio equipment from Newark; compasses from Detroit; generators from Milwaukee.

Most of these links that tied the Bay Area’s prosperity to a web of places far from here have faded.

This was true of a particular period in Bay Area history but there has been a "before" as well as an after. "Before", San Francisco entreprenuers built those railroads (at least as far eastward as Colorado) that later brought the manufactured parts for the ships and built them largely not with labor from the heartland but with labor imported from China (maybe the same places in China that now build iphones). And San Francisco was already wealthy from gold mined (or panned) in the nearby "gold country" of the Sierra foothills and the silver mines of Nevada on the other side of the same mountain range. And it was already connected to the east by the stage coaches of Wells Fargo which is a Bay Area native.

Before that even, California had a prosperous ranching economy as part of "New Spain" but had virtually no connection with the Anglophne nation to its east.

So yeah, for maybe 50-75 years out of it's 300+ years history in the hands of Europeans, the Bay Area's economy was unusally tied to heartland cities. But that isn't how the city got rich and it was a transient thing.