Scholar AnnaLee Saxenian famously explained how Silicon Valley bested Boston in the battle to be the world's center for the innovation economy. But economic eras rise and fall, as agriculture and manufacturing have done. As manufacturing descended into geographic convergence, innovation ascended into geographic divergence. Industry would cluster in handful of places, which economist Enrico Moretti noted in his book, The New Geography of Jobs. Moretti doesn't allow for a flattening world of tech. Instead, he frets about entrenched winners and losers. The inequality gap will only get wider. Instead, tech is already diffusing to other metros across the country and around the world. The race is on to be the next Silicon Valley concerning the same economic era. More and more places will get a slice of a shrinking employment pie. As innovation descends into geographic convergence, the intangible economy will ascend into geographic divergence. This time, Boston holds the regional advantage.
Image: Urban Rochester, New York, as seen from the air. (Photo: Tomkinsc/Wikimedia Commons)
