Success And The City
A city is a hub of economic and entrepreneurial bustle that breeds jobs and sucks in people from the surrounding areas. Business and investment are lured to cities and thrive on ideas, innovation and creativity. But what does such success mean for non-city areas?
Today’s city
Cities around the world are predicted to grow in future decades, as they become magnets for people and jobs and shoppers and sellers who collect to drive commercial activity and economic growth.
Technology and knowledge-driven entrepreneurs locate in cities because people with the skills they need to be productive and profitable are available in plentiful supply.
Service sector businesses gravitate to city locations to collaborate and compete and serve the desires of an endless stream of available and willing customers.
City skills
People with the skills they need to work in a city can move from business to business or to other cities where similar skills are lauded and rewarded.
The hard currency of those who succeed at city life is skills, as skills determine an employee’s value to a business and a businesses value to the economy.
The presence of the right skills ensures a fit between what businesses want and people provide and is vital to the organs of any city.
Making sure there are sufficient and sufficiently skilled people with the right savvy and experience means more businesses cluster and congregate in city settings.
A dearth of skills or a mismatch between the skills available from people and required by businesses hampers development and stifles growth.
A shortage of skills, for instance, mean businesses can’t find enough people; a gap in skills mean workers don’t have the skills employers want; and an under-utilisation of skills means workers offer more skills than employers require.
To ensure economic success it is necessary to make sure all three elements are addressed and a city, luckily, offers an ideal way to make it happen.
Success outside the city
Cities will continue to drive economic growth and job creation, as they attract and retain business, investment and, most importantly, skills and talent.
The concentration of so many people and businesses at close quarters means workers of all levels are absorbed, accommodated and advanced in their respective roles.
For those wishing to work outside a city the challenge of finding well-paid work is difficult unless a non-city model of economic growth is established.
Government policy also poses trouble, as it directs investment and infrastructure to city locales rather than to non-city locations.
The growth of cities also limits development in non-city areas, as it encourages such areas to focus on supplying commuters and doing little else.
SO, cities will continue to drive economic growth but the challenge is to create jobs in non-city areas to ensure a balanced economy and a fairer society.
