Letture: Next American City

Grazie a questo articolo della mia ex collega Nancy Scola (per inciso, è bravissima), ho scoperto Next American City, magazine di un'organizzazione no-profit che si occupa di come si stanno sviluppando le città americane, con quali strumenti e dinamiche.

Una lettura specifica e non semplice (almeno per me), ma davvero affascinante e che penso possa dare parecchi spunti (il magazine ha anche una forma di abbonamento interessante - sono curiosa di vedere se funzionerà).

Questo il pezzo che sto affrontando stasera, "Mastering the metro":

The Great Recession was a wake-up call to American metro leadership. At its onset, many U.S. cities and metropolitan areas found themselves engaged in low-road economic growth, pursuing mall developers and condo builders, as if housing and retail were drivers of the economy rather than derivative of the sectors that truly generate wealth: Manufacturing, innovation and the tradeable export industries. 

This consumption economy was mostly zero-sum. A dollar spent (and taxed) or a house built (and taxed), or a business located (and taxed) in one jurisdiction was lost to any other. So, in metropolis after metropolis, jurisdictions competed against each other for sources of tax revenue — usually commercial development and big employers — wasting scarce dollars on enticing businesses to move literally a few miles across artificial political borders. The result: Metros prioritized short-term speculation over long-term growth and sustainable development. They did this until the bubble popped. 

The collapse of the consumption-driven, domestic-focused growth model is giving rise to new thinking about a next economy that is fuelled by innovation, powered by low-carbon processes and products, driven by exports and rich with opportunity. 

These aspects of the next economy — particularly innovation — are the opposite of zero-sum. More innovation in one corner or sector of a metropolitan economy tends to yield more innovation, entrepreneurship and job creation throughout the metro. Metropolitan areas bring together people whose ideas intermix, recombine and explode in new directions. So metropolitan areas do not just produce more patents; the patents within metros tend to be cited and built on disproportionately by others in the same area.

L'articolo completo è qui.