How Do You Measure The Success Of A City?

I along with 350 others attended a presentation today by Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser. You may recall that Glaeser wrote an article recently titled "Can Buffalo Ever Come Back?" with the sub title of "Probably not- and government should stop bribing people to stay there." A shorter version of Glaeser's thoughts appeared in the Buffalo News, which you can view here Download invest_in_human_capital.doc

Glaeser's point today was that Buffalo can be a successful City, but that people focus on the wrong things to measure the success of a City. Success in Glaeser's opinion is not about increasing population or about putting up new shiny buildings. In fact an abundance of buildings relative to people is the hallmark of a declining city.

Glaeser received his greatest applause when he stated "Population growth is not the right measure for success. the right measure is how well a city is delivering basic services and providing a quality of life." 

The core advantage cities had in the past was providing the transportation of goods to a dense population at an affordable price. The core advantage for cities today according to Glaeser is connecting skilled people with ideas and entrepreneurs.

Following Glaeser's presentation a panel consisting of:

Anthony Armstrong (Local Initiatives Support Corp. (Lisc)

Paul Buckley, (President of a local business Applied Sciences Group)

Robert Gioia (The Oishei Foundation)

Cynthia Zane (Hilbert College)

spoke about how they think the success of a City should be measured. The items mentioned were:

- Lowering the poverty rate

- Lowering the literacy rate

- Having an Elmwood Village in every neighborhood

- An above average high school graduation rate

- The ability for anyone who wants a job to get one

- A diverse mixture of small and large business

When asked where Buffalo should focus first, Glaeser stated schools and education. The bottom line is that successful cities have people with skills and ideas. It was pointed out that WNY has 100,000 students attending 22 colleges and universities. However the higher education community needs to improve their connection with the business community.

What constitutes a successful City in your opinion? How do you think the success of a city should be measured?

Comments

[NYCO]

This is interesting because it seems to give a different message than the same old stuff about the "creative class" that is espoused by Richard Florida and others, ideas which have been rehashed elsewhere upstate (ie Syracuse, where I am). But "connecting skilled people with ideas and entrepreneurs" is at least something that speaks to there being a use for the existing population - IF the existing population is properly trained, which means a bedrock of literacy (I think you meant "lowering the illiteracy rate" right?) and improving the high school graduation rate, etc.

In other words, investing in what you have, not just investing in buildings and hoping shiny new people will come.