"Think Globally, Live Locally"

That's that the title of this story by Carol Lloyd in the San Francisco Chronicle. 

[I]it wasn't till I read "Who's Your City," the new book by Richard Florida, that I grasped the global implications of what's going on in the Bay Area real estate market. ... Florida argues (with ample hard evidence from myriad sources) that despite all the predictions about virtual offices and globalization rendering geography irrelevant, where you live still largely determines your destiny. Though theoretically we should be able to work just as efficiently from, as he puts it, "a ski chalet in Aspen or a house in Provence as an office in Chicago," the facts suggest that the rise of a handful of global megaregions — centers of both creative innovation and economic productivity — has made place more central to people's lives than ever.

I'm excited to be back in the Bay Area for an event at Google on March 20.

Comments

[Michael Wells]

The Internet, etc. made it possible for people to live wherever they want, and guess what? They want to live in cities. Despite all the anti-city bias that says people should want to go to Aspen, most people who have the choice choose dense urban areas.

I personally know only two people who have moved their businesses to the country. One is in Canadian Rockies and has a cutting edge design business -- but their market is skiboarding. The other moved to Vermont after being priced out of Cambridge's Kendall Square and runs a mail order Bonzai business. Other than them and a few retirees it's mostly city mice.

[Michael R. Bernstein]

What's the event at Google?