How the Detroit Syndrome will Affect Industrial era Urbanization

Finally someone in the mainstream partly shares my view on why the centralization “urbanization” paradigm of economic growth represents a passe model as the world transitions to the post industrial or information age.

From Deutsche Bank’s global strategist Sanjeev Sanyal writing at the Project Syndicate (bold mine) hat tip Zero Hedge

The problem with this post-industrial urban model is that it strongly favors generalist cities that can cluster different kinds of soft and hard amenities and human capital. Indeed, the growth dynamic can be so strong for some successful cities that they can hollow out smaller rivals (for example, London vis-à-vis the cities of northern England).

Some specialist cities could also do well in this world. But, as Detroit, with its long dependence on the automotive industry, demonstrates, cities that are dependent on a single industry or on a temporary location advantage may fare extremely poorly.

All of this has important implications for emerging economies. As it transformed itself into the “factory of the world,” the share of China’s urban population jumped from 26.4% in 1990 to around 53% today. The big, cosmopolitan cities of Beijing and Shanghai have grown dramatically, but the bulk of the urban migration has been to cookie-cutter small and medium-size industrial towns that have mushroomed over the last decade. By clustering industrial infrastructure and using the hukou system of city-specific residency permits, the authorities have been able to control the process surprisingly well.

This process of urban growth, however, is about to unravel. As China shifts its economic model away from heavy infrastructure investment and bulk manufacturing, many of these small industrial cities will lose their core industry. This will happen at a time when the country’s skewed demographics causes the workforce to shrink and the flow of migration from rural areas to cities to slow (the rural population now disproportionately comprises the elderly).

Meanwhile, the post-industrial attractions of cities like Shanghai and Beijing will attract the more talented and better-educated children of today’s industrial workers. Unlike rural migrants heading for industrial jobs, it will be much more difficult to guide educated and creative professionals using the hukou system. The boom in the successful cities, therefore, will hollow out human capital from less attractive industrial hubs, which will then fall into a vicious cycle of decay and falling productivity.

Stories like Detroit’s have played out several times in developed countries during the last half-century. And, as the fate of Mexico’s northern towns suggests, emerging economies are not immune from this process.

This shows of the evolving transition from the industrial centralized based economy towards knowledge based decentralized economy

This also means that central planning or government infrastructure spending based on the urbanization model will eventually translate to huge losses for society.

But again taxpayers will bear the burden for the miscalculations of presumptuous popularity and vote seeking policymakers