Writing in the New York Sun, Harvard’s Ed Glaeser reviews Harm de Blij’s new book,“The Power of Place (h/t: Mark Thoma):
But the flat world experienced by the globe-trotting management consultant is only the wealthiest and most air-conditioned sliver of the globe … Place is powerful indeed. People born in America or Europe are much more likely to end up wealthy and healthy than people born in the developing world. Life expectancy in Sweden and Japan is over 80, while life expectancy in Zimbabwe is under 45. The success of New York reflects the power of place to foment creativity and productivity by speeding the flow of ideas.
In his book, Mr. de Blij addresses some of the most fundamental questions in geography: Are differences across space man-made or nature’s handiwork? Is globalization homogenizing the world, and is that a good thing? Should political power be held by large nation states or devolved to smaller geographic units?
August 15th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Are differences across space man-made or nature’s handiwork? I have to believe they’re more man-made. People can build “bridges”… but they can also refuse to erect them at all, to the detriment of themselves and others.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel, asserts that geography ‘fomented’ the disparity across societies and their concomitant inequity.
August 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I think I agree with Josh (and by extension Jared Diamond) that spatial inequalities were borne out of geographic differences – some places are resource rich while others are resource poor, some are easy to access while others are isolated and insulated. But, as man-made technologies has made geographic differences easier to overcome (via transportation, transformation of raw materials, etc.), those inequalities persist for man-made reasons, as Elizabeth suggests. Does this argue for some sort of spatial affirmative action, giving a boost to places that fell behind early in the game? That’s partly what urban networks are doing today, but some of the old inequalities may be too entrenched (like the north/south divide?) to be flattened out by market forces.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Diamond’s thesis was largely about the *arrangement* of resources, not just their concentration.
Example: the fertile crescent had many more native food crops and animals that could be domesticated, but Europe has contiguous east-to-west bands of similar climates that promoted the easy *spread* of food crops, along with many north/south rivers and mountain ranges that promoted political and cultural divisions (leading to warfare and the technical progress that entails).
That’s just a crude oversimplification, but serves to illustrate that concentration of resources is only a minor (and initial) aspect of the geographical contingency Diamond is discussing.