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Knowledge-Value Cities in the Digital Age Joel Kotkin & Ross DeVol February 13, 2001 Price: $ 20.00

The revitalization of many of America’s urban centers represents one of the most important, if surprising, developments of the new millenium. The most salient reason for urban revival is the role cities are playing in the technological revolution now transforming the larger economy. Until the early 1990s, the vast majority of technology-driven activity occurred in suburban and quasi-rural areas.

However, access to the Internet on a mass scale sparked greater demand for entertainment and other creative web content. It is here, on the “soft” side of the technological revolution, that the traditional strengths of cities in the arts, marketing and graphics, have come strongly into play. Despite the upheaval among technology firms, the trend towards use of the Internet as a communications and business tool remains in place. Knowledge and the innovation capacities of human capital are at the core of our knowledge-based economy. A knowledge-based economy rests upon two interdependent but distinctively different skill sets. Knowledge-generation is contingent upon highly educated and skilled creative people typically found in first-tier urban areas. Knowledge deployment requires widely held quality skills and education in the middle of the skill distribution.

Talented individuals are highly mobile and can reward those regions that attract them. Likewise, their loss can be punishing. Urban centers that access, create and utilize human capital gain a competitive advantage.