As promised in this first post, I am going to discuss urbanization more in 2012. To refresh your memory, over 50 percent of the world's population now lives in cities. However, many cities lack the resources to provide modern infrastructure on the required scale. Such inadequate infrastructure impedes job creation, which is already imperiled by the shift from the industrial production model to a digital model. This article from Business Insider discusses the difficulty in new job creation.
Tech Crunch takes up the urbanization theme in this article, "A City is a Startup". Not surprising perhaps, they argue for entrepreneurship as a means to transform cities into viable, modern locations. They cite the recent announcement by New York City of its new Cornell Engineering campus on City Island as evidence.
Universities and particularly engineering schools are critical to the future viability of cities. (Did I mention I teach at two engineering schools?) However, it should also be pointed out that there are other requirements:
- Modern transportation and logistics infrastructure
- Access to equity capital and particulalrly seed money for new ventures
- An environment of non-exclusion regardless of race, religious affiliation or national origin
- A robust digital infrastructure (interesting report here)
- Adequate public school system
- Financially stable municipal government largely free of corruption
I will come back to these themes in future posts.
