Krugman is, of course, right about this. BUT, note that universities can do a lot to revitalize declining and rural regions.

See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote: https://t.co/2xqpKdMZUs
And see this thing that I wrote: https://t.co/2GduLv9SL5
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote: https://t.co/sXGIQHirxn
And see this other thing that I wrote: https://t.co/uxUcLHzmON
And see this book that Enrico Moretti wrote: https://t.co/GO3WXIPv25
And see yet another thing that I wrote: https://t.co/zud8wNQDTh
And see this thing that @John_C_Austin wrote: https://t.co/9NOOIiewx9
Universities are the closest thing we have to a "magic bullet" for reviving America's declining, forgotten, rural, and left-behind regions.

Everyone needs to know this. Help me get the word out.

(end)

More from Noah Smith

1/Lots of tech companies and workers are making noises about leaving San Francisco, LA, NYC, and other "superstar" cities.

Some are predicting a shift to remote work and distributed companies.

Let's take a hard look at what that would actually

2/We're all familiar with the trend of tech companies and other knowledge industries (finance, biotech, etc.) piling into a few tech hubs, raising rents and house prices.

Now some think the advent of Zoom, Slack, etc. might reverse this trend.

https://t.co/nQVCJrKvrB


3/But escaping the superstar cities is going to be tough.

The forces keeping tech companies in places like SF are so strong that these regions have essentially become prisons for these companies.


4/In order to escape the prison of the superstar cities, tech companies and other knowledge industries will have to overcome the Four Jailers of Industrial Clustering:

1. In-person office productivity

2. Thick market effects

3. Knowledge spillovers

4. City life amenities

5/I'm actually pretty optimistic that companies can find ways to make remote work productive.

Studies show that working from home *some* of the time actually tends to raise

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