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Americans face extreme income inequality today. But perhaps even more worrisome is how economic inequality has bred spatial inequality. According to recent Brookings Institute research, in 2017 more than half of U.S. innovation jobs (defined as employment in 13 of the nation’s highest-tech, highest-R D industries) were concentrated in just 41 counties. That has created a tale-of-two-cities situation, where metros such as San Francisco face skyrocketing costs of living, patently ridiculous real estate prices, and a crisis of displacement, affordability, and homelessness, which others in former industrial hubs, especially those in economically depressed rural areas, struggle to build stable, diverse, high-tech prosperity for all. It also explains the Amazon HQ2 debacle, as well as the current morass over Foxconn’s promised factory: Cities are desperate when it comes to attracting high-tech jobs, since many see it as the only game in town.
According to many experts, in the future, artificial intelligence (AI) may push even more workers out of their jobs, threatening even more inequality and make it more incumbent for cities to focus on economic development. Mark Muro at the Brookings Institution tells Curbed that while the economic advances and trends of the 2010s favored concentrated innovation districts in cities, and worked against manufacturing in rural areas, the coming age of AI will disrupt plans across the board.
“It is a city story,” Muro says. “While robotics and automation will be in small cities, AI is going to impact different types of jobs and professions, including those held by downtown office workers and millennial office staff, more urban professional services.”
Muro’s report doesn’t explicitly tie the rise of AI to job loss, only suggesting that it will disrupt many industries. But that means the fate of cities will be tied even more explicitly to their embrace of technology and equity; can investment in innovation and education create stable, high-paying, high-tech careers? ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis wrote recently that “growing regional inequality is the story of our moment.” Will cities be able to harness technology to reverse this trend?
Will the eyes in the sky found in Chinese cities go international?
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