The last two weeks have been so busy flying that I don't even have time to go to my favorite skiing; but I have sneaked around and read this book, which is very rewarding and very experienced, and the title of the book is "The City You Belong to", which solves the doubts that have plagued me for 12 years:
Why am I so determined to settle in Beijing? In fact, I am a person from all over the world, in the past 12 years, I have traveled to Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou; among them, Tianjin, Shanghai, Suzhou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou have lived for more than 1 year, can not say that I am not familiar.
I used to be at IBM, and the name IBM was actually (I've Been Moved, I've migrated)
I also like the climate cuisine of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, I also like the history and culture of Suzhou and Hangzhou, and I also have a certain affection for Tianjin, but in the end, I still rooted in Beijing without hesitation, and I did not hesitate to face any temptation.
I thought it was because I liked Beijing, liked the warmth and coldness of Beijing, liked the spring and autumn of Beijing, and the history and culture of the imperial capital; in fact, it was not. Friends who usually gather at only two tables, have severe allergies every spring pollen season, and do not visit the museum concert hall once every two years – the core reason is that I am sure that my opportunity is in Beijing.
This is also the core starting point of the book "The City You Belong to": people with knowledge or talents will spontaneously or be coerced into choosing to enter those cities with capital, wealth and opportunity, and gather with other people with knowledge and talents, just like Shanghai Beach in the Republic of China, only in cities where talent capital gathers, intellectuals will have more opportunities, and their descendants will be relative.
Economic advantages and geographical advantages are actually complementary. The following towns in third- and fourth-tier cities are compared with golden spoon students from first-tier cities who are well-off:
The high school life of the subject is only to prepare for the college entrance examination, interstellar, CS, and warcraft; the high school life of the golden spoon includes bands, hosts, street dance, and world tourism;
The only college life of the subject is the student union, the dance party, the budget tour, the love, the part-time job, and the make-up class; the college life of the golden spoon includes studying abroad, investment, sports cars, and parties;
After graduation, due to the lack of capital and cognition, they will miss many investment opportunities; after the golden spoon graduation, whether it is the initial capital or cognitive level, it will not be too bad, and they will have a first-mover advantage.
However, if you compare the small town as a problem writer with the "Quanzhen Seven Sons" from poor counties, then the town problem solver is much better than the "Ding Zhen", at least the problem writer can still receive a good education, have the opportunity to travel and capital, have money to accept tuition, and can participate in the education competition without distraction, not to mention dropping out of school early like the "Quanzhen Seven Sons".
At this point, I have come to a cruel conclusion about the current situation: the place where you were born/grew up may determine the opportunities you can encounter in your life. Whether we without primitive capital can become intellectual nomads is the key to changing our lives.
Modern youth can also be simply divided into nomadic and agrarian peoples. Nomadic peoples have the will, the ability, and the resources to find and migrate to the places where their talents can best be used; for the farming peoples, they are already living in the fertile land (can't the Beijingers come to Shenzhen to work?). ), or they have personally experienced "Chang'an residence, it is not easy".
This is especially true in the United States, where the inhabitants of rust belt states (see "The Lamentations of the Countrymen") can determine their chances of life compared with the city dwellers of New York and California; if they have the ability to become intellectual nomads, they can still find a turnaround, and if they cannot become nomads, then they will completely lose the opportunity to change their lives.
Where will American nomads migrate? It's basically Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Austin, New York, Atlanta or Washington, because in those cities they see a lot of opportunities, they have a colorful life, they have a lot of friends; they definitely don't migrate to Fargo, North Dakota, or Lafayette, Louisiana — what are they going to do there? What's the picture?
From my observation, the world is currently undergoing a demographic reorganization on geographical coordinates: intellectual nomadic civilians with high skills, high education and high salaries are migrating to super cities to create wealth for the capitalists at the top and get a share of themselves. If you look at Hangzhou alone, how many intellectual new riches have been created? How much has Shenzhen produced?
At the same time, the traditional middle and low classes continue to move out of the core area of the metropolis, you can review the behavior and process of population control in Beijing and Shanghai over the years, starting from the demolition of Tangjialing, coupled with the prohibition of partitioning, the urban core area of cheaper and fewer places, low-income civilians began to live farther away.
This is an intellectual transfer, a city that can attract talented people, and belongs to the Zhihui City (Intellectual Convergence); the Zhihui City, together with the area he radiates, is a potential economic zone, such as Beijing, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Dahuazhong, Sichuan-Chongqing.
There have been so many graduates over the years, but where have these graduates gone? Did it go to the major cities? If it were not for the state using various political and economic means to pull a group of college students to take the civil service examination, or to promote college students to become village officials; without a system guarantee, how many intellectual civilians with higher education would go to poor counties, such as Litang?
George Soros (born in Hungary) once said that if he stayed in his hometown, he would probably not be able to achieve anything, because his hometown lacked a stage where he could show his talents.
For talented and ambitious people, only by living in Zhihui City can they realize their personal dreams and earn enough Fucking Money. Smart and well-educated people, when gathered together, will have a huge innovation and growth effect; these years of sudden rise in Zhihu, Headlines, Pinduoduo, Kuaishou, And Douyin are all proof of this. Without the gathering of intellectual civilians, there will be no exciting innovation.
Entrepreneurs, investors, engineers, designers and other smart and creative people gather, in their work and life, will naturally collide with business ideas, these ideas are refined and then implemented, and if feasible, will be amplified, promoted, and popularized through the Internet. The smarter and more connected people are, the faster they develop. This is the multiplier effect of intellectual aggregation.
In addition to being able to attract smart people and unleash their creativity, Smart City has a bigger and more obvious advantage over other places: a high starting point. Zhihui cities often have excellent universities, which can accumulate relatively concentrated talents in the early stages. The gathering of talents has a Matthew effect, the more talents are more attractive, and the more intellectual civilians, means that more wealth can be created.
The convergence of these intellectual commoners and capitalists will produce extremely high returns, and the incomes of intellectual commoners will also grow rapidly, and it is these people who continue to push up housing prices and live a high-cost life far beyond the ordinary middle class. y
So the current intelligence gathering situation, cut off the direct link between population growth and economic growth in the past, now, as long as the intellectual civilian population in the city continues to grow, coupled with the basis of manufacturing and logistics, how much economic growth can a Tesla gigafactory in Shanghai drive? Otherwise, why did Xi'an in the previous two years and Shanghai this year start to rob people?
The migration of intellectual nomads divides the world into two regions with very different economic prospects, and a small number of zhihui cities will attract the vast majority of high-skilled people who live in the world, who will either rely on capital to make a fortune (such as BAT) or become a new upstart (such as PDD) like the doormen of Rongguofu and Ningguofu, and the areas where they gather, income and housing prices will climb, such as Xi'erqi in Beijing, Zhangjiang in Shanghai, Xiasha in Hangzhou, and Nanshan in Shenzhen. Other regions become dumping places for goods, supplying raw materials and manufacturing and processing.
There is already a clear social rift in the United States, where people prefer to communicate with people with the same education, economy, and background, such as the tears between Republican and Democratic supporters, and between urban and rural residents. In the United States, because of the difference between incomes, the population has created a more serious segregation problem.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > super-region</h1>
In addition to the super smart city, there are several super regions in the world with hundreds of millions of people, which have been based on intelligence, continue to innovate, and have effectively brought the vast majority of scientific and technological innovation in the world, changing our lives.
Today's megaregions function somewhat similarly to those of the big cities of the past – bringing together talent, manufacturing, innovation and markets, such as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. In the face of irreversible globalization, the larger and more competitive economic unit of the superregion has replaced cities as the true engine of the global economy.
The superregion has become the new natural economy. It is not artificially set, nor is it an artificial political boundary like the nation-state or the provinces of the state, but is the product of innovation, production centers, and consumer markets. Today's superregions, essentially the aggregation of neighboring cities and their suburbs, extend far beyond individual cities and their inland areas.
In 1957, the economic geographer Jean Gottman first used the term "megapolis" to describe the boston-Washington corridor, an emerging economic hub. The word is of Greek origin and means "great city".
Speaking of this, this is the core idea of this article: if you have the ability to become an intellectual nomad, then whether it is from the richness of life, the difficulty of making friends, the degree of economic affluence, or the future imagination space, choose a "wisdom city" early, establish a wide circle of weak contacts in it, and slowly find lifelong lovers and friends, is the most correct choice.
The best theory of Natavud Baudhavi, an economist at the University of London, is this: it takes time and effort to earn a higher income or maintain stable social relationships with others, that everyone's investment decisions depend on what they have, such as money or friendship, and that their choices will have a better impact on their happiness.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > which city do you hit? </h1>
The goods and services of modern society are already sufficient, and our basic needs in life can be greatly satisfied, so we will turn our attention to the "quality of life", that is, happiness, satisfaction and sense of gain, which will make us physically and mentally happy, meaningful, colorful and able to realize our own value.
In the city where you can find this kind of life, this city is your promised land. For me at this moment, the Promised Land is Beijing. Most of my close friends are in Beijing; my clients, partners, and competitors are in Beijing; my weak contacts are in Beijing; and the dads who advertise for me are also in Beijing.
More importantly, Beijing has a large number of outstanding people. With the population base and talent density of Beijing, there are many smart people who may become my friends, my connections, my father, my partners, and my competitors in the future; I will also get to know these people through various forums, gatherings, and activities, and eventually promote each other, collide with each other, and realize micro-innovation in small fields.
These factors are found in major cities, but Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are in the top three, and Guangzhou is not even as good as these three cities. There are a lot of talents in Guangzhou, but they are more localized, and it is difficult for me to connect with them.
For example, when I was stationed in Guangzhou last year, I was completely reluctant to explore the city, and what I did was to return to Beijing again and again on weekends, eat with friends, party, and soothe the tense nerves; at that time, I was in Guangzhou, I did not make new friends at all, and I only got together with old friends a few times, and my life was only work.
In 2007, Nattavudh Powdthavee, an economist at the University of London, used survey data to estimate the value of the money that frequently sees friends and loved ones. Studies have shown that seeing friends and loved ones every day is almost more valuable than a 6-figure extra income.
According to my personal experience, the relationship between people in East China has always been very weak, and everyone has maintained a business relationship that is not far away, lukewarm and lukewarm; it may take a huge amount of time and effort to enter the hearts of the people of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai - but I am busy and high, and I will not take the initiative to take a few steps forward many times - I have been in East China for five years, and I have not made a few good friends.
Therefore, when you choose a city, in addition to the development space and talent density, the focus is on whether your personality matches the city, whether you can quickly find friends in the city, find friends, find stable income, find a sense of belonging, then this city is your first city.
If you're leaving the city, there have to be other influencing factors, such as having a very important person in another city, a better home, a more attractive job, and the hope of starting over with a written off the past, and a choice if there's a better future in the distance.
However, please respect this general trend of intellectual talent gathering, which is not subject to personal will. You can savor this conversation again: "You have escaped, and your future children will have to repeat your old ways."
Assemble，Talent！