Enrico Moretti

Like manufacturing before it, the Innovation Economy has reached a turning point, with jobs moving to places where labor is cheaper.

Silicon Shore. Silicon Beach. Silicon Roundabout. How many different technology hubs can we have? Like the untethering of manufacturing from regional natural resources that crushed the Rust Belt, Silicon Valley's one-time advantage of a high concentration of venture capitalists matters less and less as the cost of technology falls.

Silicon Valley and Chesapeake Energy face the same problem: the cost of extraction. The technology industry needs to get smarter about workforce development, and fast.

The Innovation Economy peaked with the last financial crisis. In the emerging epoch—the Talent Economy—the competition among companies like Google and Facebook for the same pool of ideas makers will reshape our cities.

Nearly a century ago, during the Great Migration, less-educated individuals were the ones who left home in search of better lives. The opposite is true today, with the educated more mobile than ever before, leaving some places in a spiral of decline.

Most people don't move to Portland for the usual reason—employment. The City of Roses attracts talent with a focus on urban amenities and regional planning. But that strategy is easy to replicate elsewhere.