How 3 Skill Sets Explain U.S. Economic Geography

America today is defined not just by widening economic inequality, but by rising geographic inequality. Our increasingly winner-take-all economic geography divides a small number of superstar cities (New York, L.A.) and top tech hubs (Boston, Seattle, Austin, and Boulder) from a much larger group of struggling places. A wide body of research links this pattern to concentrations in talent and human capital. The winners have much higher concentrations of college-educated talent than other U.S. cities.

Now, a new study published in the Journal of Regional Science finds that it is not just the level of education that matters for the wealth of a city, but the specific kind of job-based skill. Economists Amanda Weinstein (of the University of Akron) and Carlianne Patrick (of Georgia State University) find that cities with higher concentrations of cognitive skills, which are associated with knowledge work, and “people” skills like managing and motivating employees have higher levels of economic performance and are far better able to cope with downturns than those with high levels of “motor” (or routine physical) skills, associated with traditional manufacturing jobs.