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Old 09-20-2011, 12:58 AM
 
2,115 posts, read 5,402,174 times
Reputation: 1138

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You know "hsw", I used to laugh quite a bit at your repetitive posts throughout City-Data, but now as we are maturing in the current Obama era of politics & economics, I perhaps see things a little bit more through your lens. You constantly knocked the city life (Chi, NYC, etc.) while singing praises of the more suburban Palo Alto lifestyle (the lifestyle that I envision Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha to adore since he always says that his home is northern Cali). Your claim is that most of the wealth is generated via computers in these "non-descript office parks" in NorCal, several other suburbs throughout USA and maybe a few floors in the Loop & Manhattan lol. This is fine & dandy and I can KIND of see what you're saying

However, how can you explain away the $2 billion dollars worth of trading losses that Kweku Adoboli rang up for UBS in their London office? Surely such stupidity is going to reverbate throughout all the markets. Have you ever thought that perhaps the entire financial market model is flawed as a whole? Seems awfully suspect when the whole thing is being orchestrated by a bunch of Ivy League stamped gamblers & "high-speed computers".

Quote:
Originally Posted by hsw View Post
Do own economic rankings...don't mindlessly believe lamestream media "analysis"

How valuable (per stock market) are corporate HQs located in region?
How many >$1MM/yr earners choose to live/work in region?
Where do top 10% of grads of world's top 5 colleges migrate for careers?

Chic trounces lots of towns anywhere (esp towns in low-productivity EU/Asia; why haven't Apples/Googles been created in these backward, yet highly populated regions of world???)....but it's really a few 100 traders in Loop who define Chic's economy esp at hedge funds like Citadel (or Magnetar out in Evanston); most valuable cos. in region are mockable McDonalds and Abbott located in distant suburbs, not in city

And most of world's wealthiest software engineers live and work in suburbs around PaloAlto, not in any Luddite town like SF or SJ; and many of world's most valuable companies like Apple or Exxon or Google or Microsoft are HQd in mundane suburban office parks, not in "city" of SF or Dallas or NYC

Traditional economic/cultural relevance of cities is increasingly suspect as highest-IQ, most economically productive work most often occurs via computers from anywhere at anytime, perhaps from a mundane suburban office park or someone's suburban home or (less often) a trading floor in a nondescript skyscraper in MidtownManhattan or Loop
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Old 09-20-2011, 08:15 AM
 
Location: River North, Chicago, Illinois
4,620 posts, read 8,142,617 times
Reputation: 6321
Quote:
Originally Posted by hsw View Post
...
Traditional economic/cultural relevance of cities is increasingly suspect as highest-IQ, most economically productive work most often occurs via computers from anywhere at anytime, perhaps from a mundane suburban office park or someone's suburban home or (less often) a trading floor in a nondescript skyscraper in MidtownManhattan or Loop
"Trading" is meaningless unless there is something to trade. The only thing traders "create" are definitions. They define market prices and as such they define the temporary economic value of what they trade. While that's important because it enables investors and creators to profit from their work, traders are essentially the sales team, not the people who create the intrinsic value in an economy.

As for other office workers creating value, 90% of what computers do falls into the realm of saving money or improving efficiency, not in creating things. The vast majority of things we do and have today existed without computers 70 years ago. The difference is a matter of efficiency and precision.

At the end of the day, creation is the only thing that creates sustainable value in the long term. Shuffling papers can be lucrative when a new, better way of organization is discovered (i.e. the computer), but once the new system is more or less set up, paper shufflers eventually transition back to being clerks. As we become more and more efficient, the amount of improvement that's needed to justify expenditures on new technology grows, because there's less and less room for savings related to organization of information. In 1980, everyone and his brother could make money with PCs because it was a wide open field and even basic new software could save people a lot of time and make their data more useful. Then the internet exploded and anyone could make money in that because it was a wide open field. But today, while people still make money in both those areas, it's no longer a wide open field. Things are starting to become established and wage growth among average tech workers is slowing, even declining in some fields. They're becoming clerks.

it's always nice to be able to attract high-value service companies and jobs to a city or region, but there are only so many of those kinds of jobs. Eventually, those jobs go where those jobs already are, because the people who do those jobs can pretty much live wherever they want to. They rub elbows, share ideas, and become better at what they do because of that interaction. A lot of office jobs can be done anywhere, but over the mid-to-long term, the best office jobs will be in places where the people doing the jobs can interact with the best in their field on a regular basis. Steel sharpens steel. It, to a certain extent, carries over from universities, too. Harvard isn't a premier school because of its facilities or its endowment or even primarily because of its professors. Harvard is a premier school because it starts with the best students. Those students polish and sharpen each other at least as much as the staff does.

That's the advantage of cities. When there's disruption, bubbles of prosperity can pop up anywhere, but over the long term cities will always carry an advantage.
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Old 09-20-2011, 08:17 AM
 
1,251 posts, read 2,507,864 times
Reputation: 896
Don't expect replies, guys.
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Old 09-21-2011, 02:28 AM
 
6,438 posts, read 6,893,197 times
Reputation: 8742
Quote:
Originally Posted by ERS-One View Post
Don't expect replies, guys.
You can expect a reply from me; urban economics and finance is my field. However, it's 4 a.m. so you'll have to wait for my wisdom.
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Old 09-21-2011, 08:38 AM
 
1,251 posts, read 2,507,864 times
Reputation: 896
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Siegel View Post
You can expect a reply from me; urban economics and finance is my field. However, it's 4 a.m. so you'll have to wait for my wisdom.
I was referring to the poster they both replied too.
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Old 01-09-2012, 08:50 PM
 
2 posts, read 2,185 times
Reputation: 17
People who are surprised by Chicago's ranking as an Alpha city are ignorant. Chicago is a world financial center that has the worlds largest derivative markets (Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange). Also, Chicago is world renowned for it's architecture and culture. It is also home to many Fortune 500 companies including Boeing, McDonald's, Kraft, United Airlines to name a few. The metro Chicago area is home to 9 million people.
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Old 09-01-2013, 07:52 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
36 posts, read 44,128 times
Reputation: 30
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnutella View Post
Another impressive jump is Philadelphia from Gamma+ to Alpha-. Must have something to do with Comcast NBC Universal.
Yep. I said the same thing lol. Comcast being the owner of a global media company has boosted Philly up to alpha- and hopefully Philly rises up. Im glad its not a gamma anymore. It was depressing to see this great city so low but now its in the top 47 alpha cities that rule the world!
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Old 09-01-2013, 07:56 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
36 posts, read 44,128 times
Reputation: 30
Quote:
Originally Posted by RJS2 View Post
People who are surprised by Chicago's ranking as an Alpha city are ignorant. Chicago is a world financial center that has the worlds largest derivative markets (Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange). Also, Chicago is world renowned for it's architecture and culture. It is also home to many Fortune 500 companies including Boeing, McDonald's, Kraft, United Airlines to name a few. The metro Chicago area is home to 9 million people.
Just take other ignorant ppl's opinion with a grain of salt. Chicago is on the level of Paris, HK and Tokyo. Its alpha+ for a reason. Chicago started the skyscraper era which changed the world forever and now its one of the 10 most important cities on the globe for a reason. I bet most of the ppl who bash Chicago never been there before.
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