"America's hinterlands now serve as playgrounds for the few wired haves"
Globalisation isn't killing the USA's backwater cities and rural areas, but rather turning them into escapes for wealthy "digirati" who are pumping money into regeneration projects, says Aaron Betsky in response to a New York Times article.
Big cities operate globally. Well, duh. It took the "newspaper of record", the New York Times, only about a decade to figure out what its own columnists (such as Thomas Friedman) and such astute critics as Columbia University professor Saskia Sassen (quoted in the article) have been saying for at least that long: there are now elite cities that trade and talk to each other across the globe, using resources wherever they find them.
The days of a San Francisco or New York being dependent on their hinterland to propel particular industries and thus metropolitan wealth have long been over. This, according to the Times, leaves smaller cities across the country dying. "What happens," asks author Emily Badger, "to America's manufacturing heartland when Silicon Valley turns to China" Where do former mill and mining towns fit in when big cities shift to digital work" How does upstate New York benefit when New York City increases business with Tokyo""
They lose out, she goes on to claim. Except, guess what, that is not quite the case. Yes, industries there are dying, but their carcasses are turning into lofts for nerds to live, work, and play (supposedly at the same time). Yes, storefronts in...
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