Some cities may be too small to survive the transition from an industrial to knowledge-based economy or adapt to changes brought on by new technology, The New York Times reports in a story today.
In fact, living in small cities “can be dangerous places” for working people, Mark Muro of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, says.
To prove his point, Muro compared the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, with populations above 550,000, against the 182 smallest, which have populations ranging from 80,000 to about 215,000. On average, larger cities, he found, recovered from the Great Recession faster than the small ones.
Additionally, he selected big and small metropolitan areas only in the 10 states most subjected to economic disruption—defined by the penetration of automation and job displacement as a result of foreign trade—to tease out the effects of these transformative forces.
Muro found private employment grew almost twice as fast in large metropolitan areas as it did in small ones from the trough of the recession in 2009 to 2015; income grew 50% faster. And the labor participation rate—the share of the working-age population in the labor force—shrank only half as much.
“Economic transitions work against smaller America,” Muro says.“This is a period demanding excruciating transitions.”
