1. We have reams of evidence that physical clustering of firms & people plays a huge role in innovation, creativity, productivity & economic growth.
2. My own hunch is that in-office work does not matter significantly to this process.
3. Though Thomas Allen's famous Allen Curve and Will Strange's work on vertical density merit close consideration. medium.com/@FLOXworks/why…
4.BUT, even if in-office clustering, density & proximity do not matter. It is a big MISTAKE to think dispersed and distributed work will NOT effect innovation, creativity and productivity.
5. Unless a whole lot of research by folks like Ed Glaeser & Enrico Morretti is very wrong, clustering, proximity, density - however you define what "cities do" is a main factor in innovation, creativity & productivity in knowledge-based capitalism.
6. I have elsewhere argued that that tends not to happen in central business districts but rather in innovation clusters like Silicon Valley or Lower Manhattan or Cambridge around MIT. ...
7. Though others have pushed back on that and say a lot of startups are in around say downtown San Francisco.
8. Still the main point is that clustering & density are key factors in innovation & national economic competitiveness.
9. To my mind it is a big mistake to think innovation & clustering do not matter & to be cheering on, or worse devising actual policies, that encourage widespread dispersal & decentralization, tho' the evolution of new regional hubs & clusters merits a look.
10. The US & its cities are not the only place that innovation occurs & talent can shift & relocate to new global clusters, tho' I believe the US still has big advantages in this.
11. Short story: In our haste to extol the virtues of remote work (which I believe in) & to celebrate the demise of office-based control systems (which I am also on board with), we should be careful not to throw the proverbial "baby out with the bathwater."
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