
High-skilled workers in small towns are a ‘waste of resources,’ says study - SQL2219
https://www.fastcompany.com/90425948/high-skilled-workers-in-small-towns-are-a-waste-of-resources-says-controversial-princeton-study
======
_bxg1
Setting aside the primary claim, I think there would be lots of secondary
effects if this were taken to an extreme. Diversity is good in any system; in
this case, exposure to people with different levels of income, different life
priorities and personalities, different backgrounds, increases empathy and
broaden's one's understanding of the world. This exposure is especially
important in a large, democratic society. We've already started to see the
loss of some of this cross-pollination in recent years, and the country's
divides haven't been this deep in decades. Increased homogenization would be
catastrophic, I think.

------
motohagiography
"Cognitive non-repetitive," work as described is basically political work.
I've heard it referred to lately as "durable skills." Soft skills are useful
tools like others, but the elevation of them above competent work makes for
soft ideas.

In the article, the examples of CNR work included "computer scientists," with
lawyers, doctors, and managers - all jobs that computer scientists are rapidly
augmenting, if not replacing with machine learning. So called CNR work isn't
intrinsically valuable. It's artificially gated and the market for them is
distorted because of regulatory capture. Tech is changing that.

However, I also think the availability of information on the internet has
reduced the status of formerly elite schools to mere managerialist tribes. The
schools offered networks and information, and those can't compete with social
media. They're still politically influential, but the culture is leaving them
behind and they're rapidly becoming just another faction. So, my bias is that
the article is about some self-interested critical nonsense advocating a
political agenda that won't have cultural traction. I look forward to arguing
that point from my farm.

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erichocean
Yet another study where humans are "resources" to be "efficiently" "exploited"
by business. No thanks.

~~~
TomMckenny
I agree with the sentiment: people are too often regard as mere tools. But I
believe (hope) the paper was a theoretical exercise. In the same way one might
discover human flesh is nutritious. And I image no society (expect maybe
China) would view the paper as a how-to manual.

Rather than using this information to create a dystopian (and kinda click
baity) future, it could be used to examine current social forces and make
predictions and, ideally, prepare/compensate for them.

Indeed it would be just as easy spin the paper in a multitude of ways. For
example, one might use it to justify taxation earmarked to aid the rural poor
by saying it's not only ethical but also efficient.

------
coralreef
I don't think the general thesis is so controversial or untrue. If your goal
is singly maximizing for economic output, you're going to make silly trade-
offs.

 _" In a summary of the paper, they emphasized that the research was an
“academic exercise” and that they didn’t address all the factors or potential
repercussions of such a policy."_

~~~
dwaltrip
Ehh, it's a very simplistic model (relative to the complexity of the domain).
It might be somewhat true in a very narrow sense. Naively implemented, it
would be sure to result in many unforseen consequences.

------
mikekchar
Quoting from the article that quotes the paper: "Furthermore, their
productivity is tremendously enhanced by living with other CNR workers." Where
"CNR" workers includes "computer programmers".

I really take issue with that. I think it is blatantly untrue. I've worked in
small towns and I've worked in large metropolises (London, for example). I am
_not_ more productive in a metropolis. It's handy to go to meetups
occasionally, but I have to say that with the internet I learn more by
watching interesting talks and emailing people occasionally than I ever did
going to the pub and chatting with super famous people in person.

I mean, I _enjoy_ going to the pub and chatting with people in person and I
really miss that about London, but I'm way more productive in my current rural
setting.

It is, however, instructive to note that I am a remote worker. As a _business_
, if you want to have people who are local, then it helps tremendously to be
able to select from a large pool. That's obvious. As an individual it's much
easier to network in person and so it's easier to get a job. But, when you are
actually _on_ the job? I really don't see this increase in "productivity" at
all.

~~~
orev
I took the article to mean that the _collective effect_ of CNR workers is
enhanced when many are in the same location. The productivity of each person
enhances the rest. That’s not the same thing as being individually productive.

~~~
droithomme
So it benefits lazy corporations and not smart corporations or astute talented
individuals. Not really something beneficial to the greater society IMO.

~~~
malandrew
If society relied merely on astute talented individuals, it wouldn't get very
far. Most of the most astute talented individuals that have had an impact on
society have had that impact as a result of all the less astute individuals in
the organizations (corporations or otherwise) of which they were a part. The
Manhattan project is exemplary of this.

------
brokenkebab
I'm old enough to remember times when prestigiously-educated experts claimed
big cities are going to disappear because of developing communications. Great
to know they didn't stop generating their valuable prophecies since then!

------
dredmorbius
The paper in question: "Cognitive Hubs and Spatial Redistribution", by Esteban
Rossi-Hansberg ( Princeton University), Pierre-Daniel Sarte (Federal Reserve
Bank of Richmond), Felipe Schwartzman (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond).
September 3, 2019

[https://www.princeton.edu/~erossi/CHSR.pdf](https://www.princeton.edu/~erossi/CHSR.pdf)

------
baron816
I hate when these articles cite “outrage” by linking a tweet with 6 likes. I
wish journalists had an ethics board that banned outlets from trying to stir
up controversy like this.

~~~
jacquesm
You should check out the paper. It is 83 pages (a bit longer than a tweet) and
very dense with math. It tries super hard to reduce a social issue to a
mathematical one with an optimum solution and is probably the best example
I've seen of a disconnect between science and real life consequences.

~~~
nabla9
Are you saying that economists should not study subjects that can have
negative consequences for some?

The fact that productivity increases in big cities is not new finding.
Economies of agglomeration is well studied subject.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration)

This study is modelling just one of the reasons why it is so little better.

~~~
jacquesm
This is the exact kind of thinking that got you Trump. Keep in mind that by
the time 'some' amounts to a substantial part of the voting public that the
disenfranchised can turn around and throw a spanner in the works. It would be
socially much more productive to study how to re-balance society in such a way
that the gains are not realized locally.

Think of it this way (very much simplified):

If cities A and B create are producing 10 units of value each and small towns
C, D, E and F are producing 3 each and you relocate all the 'important'
(again, simplifying) people to A and B so they produce 20 units of value each
while the small towns drop to 1 each you've according to the paper optimized
and reduced the waste. After all 43 > 29\. But from society's view this is a
net loss. It would be much better to see how the small towns go from 3 to 5
each in order to reduce the gap.

Of course this is super simplified and in the end wealth distribution is a
complex subject but this paper strikes out for me.

~~~
nabla9
Inequality is separate issue.

Inequality is best addressed by free healthcare, education and direct money
transfers, not by slowing down things that create wealth and increase
efficiencies.

~~~
jacquesm
Nonsense. Inequality is best addressed by ensuring resources are spread
equally so that _chance_ is distributed equally. If you don't do that then
you're simply locking in and further accelerating any advantage already there.
That's a positive feedback loop which will eventually lead to vast inequality
that no amount of free healthcare, education and money are going to solve.

~~~
cousin_it
Paul Graham, who started this website, wrote: "Eliminating great variations in
wealth would mean eliminating startups. And that doesn't seem a wise move."
How would you respond to that?

~~~
jacquesm
I would respond that that quote is taken severely out of context if applied to
such entities as cities and towns. Besides that I think PG has a bit of a
vested interest there; you rarely see a rich person argue for more equality in
wealth.

That said PG did more to lift up people to riches than the bulk of the paper
penning econometrists.

So, start-ups are fine, but making it harder for people from smaller towns or
rural areas to get proper medical care, legal representation, education and so
on because of perceived economic benefits of letting them rot in favor of
improving the lives of those in the cities is missing the wood for the trees
and will do a large amount of harm.

~~~
cousin_it
nabla9 said: "Inequality is best addressed by free healthcare, education and
direct money transfers". To which you replied "Nonsense" and demanded more
drastic measures, otherwise healthcare and education won't help. But now you
say healthcare and education are what matters. I'm confused.

~~~
jacquesm
It was nabla9 missing the point the article advocates for reallocating
resources to where they have the most economic effect: the big agglomerations.

Providing free (but crappy) healthcare and education will not close the divide
thus created.

So these things are not going to be solved without capable people in places
that are behind already. You need _good_ healthcare and _good_ education at
the same cost as in the big cities to make it make sense. If the price is free
then so much the better but first and foremost this is a discussion about
_quality_.

For example: in a certain third world country healthcare may be free. But all
the good doctors have left for the United States because that's where they get
paid the most. So now the locals have 'free healthcare' but it doesn't really
help them. They probably would like access to _better_ and affordable
healthcare.

------
wrnr
Don't read too much into it, economic models like this are wrong in the same
way the original version of Einstein's theory of general relativity fails to
model 90% of the stuff in the universe, except that in this case it's more
like 99.9%. The original paper[1] describes a spacial equability models where
selfish agent move to maximise some utility function. It's in the vein of
Shelling's segregation model. It's the sort of idea that the non-cognitive
repeat ad nauseam.

[1]
[https://www.princeton.edu/~erossi/CHSR.pdf](https://www.princeton.edu/~erossi/CHSR.pdf)

------
DoreenMichele
So, basically, "blue collar workers don't need no stinking doctors" (among
other things).

I don't know what on Earth their criteria was, but this is not a study
conclusion I can remotely agree to get behind.

------
a3n
One of the most blood chilling things I've recently read.

~~~
antonvs
I assume you mean because of the social engineering aspect of incentivizing
"CNR workers" to move to big cities and discouraging other kinds of workers
from being there.

If so, I agree. It's this idea of nationwide economic efficiency being the be-
all and end-all goal of social policy, which completely ignores the actual
"social" aspect of gutting small towns even more than already happens, not to
mention instituting systems of effective apartheid that attempt to exclude
people from important economic hubs.

Edit: ironically, Princeton itself is a pretty small town - 17,487 people in
Princeton proper. Of course it's probably not what the study had in mind, and
it's about 1.5 hours from NYC and an hour from Philadelphia, making it part of
the Northeast megalopolis. Still, "small town" may not be the right term for
what they're getting at.

~~~
jacquesm
It's not only institutionalizing the social divide between 'rural' and 'city',
it is effectively deepening that divide.

~~~
vkou
Nothing can bridge that divide, because of the simple nature of economics in
an industrialized country. Unless you are dealing with raw resource
extraction, cities are _more productive_ , period.

The thing about living in an industrialized country is that raw resource
extraction does not employ all that much labour.

It doesn't even matter how you structure your economic system. Even if we
install radical socialism, with very heavy emphasis on wealth redistribution,
there is still going to be a huge social divide between urban and rural.

We're better off not pretending that up is down, and black is white, and
instead dealing with a world where we acknowledge that these differences
exist, and will always exist.

------
jstewartmobile
“ _Long ago the country bore the country-town and nourished it with her best
blood. Now the giant city sucks the country dry, insatiably and incessantly
demanding and devouring fresh streams of men, till it wearies and dies in the
midst of an almost uninhabited waste of country._ ”

― Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West

------
em-bee
what this study is missing is that a lot of non-CNR work is going to be
automated away. there is a likely future in which CNR work is the only work
left for humans to do.

if the conclusion of the study is even valid, then it only supports a trend
that has been going on for a long time: we all move into cities, and living in
the countryside may become a thing of the past.

this is not necessarily a good future as far as living conditions are
concerned, but this is the current trend we are seeing everywhere.

silicon valley is a case in point. the reason why the startup ecosystem
thrives there is because all resources needed are in one place.

what we really need to learn from this is how to enable this kind of
collaboration without all needing to live and work in close proximity.

~~~
goatinaboat
_that a lot of non-CNR work is going to be automated away. there is a likely
future in which CNR work is the only work left for humans to do._

Hilariously untrue. There will still be plumbers and hairdressers long after
the last lawyers and accountants have been AI’d away. I bet there will still
be nurses long after doctors have gone the same way.

The reason of course is Moravec’s Paradox.

~~~
em-bee
yes, but plumbers and hairdressers are needed everywhere. it's not good to
send them away from the cities. those jobs that can be sent away will be those
that can also be automated away.

------
LanceH
Disallowing work from small towns where a high skilled worker resides is a
waste of resources.

Refusing to pay based on employee value of a highly skilled worker in a remote
location is a waste of opportunity.

------
bigred100
While the thesis may be true, I also believe that society’s intellectuals will
generally come up with intellectual arguments for whatever society was going
to do anyway.

------
finnmagic
For maximal efficiency, why don’t they just decide what we should do
professionally and then move us into the most convenient commune?

------
algaeontoast
This article immediately lead to the mental image of Patrick Star from
SpongeBob saying “We’ll take the poors, and move them over there” .

------
crb002
True in so much as the Jeff/Sanjay effect.
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-
friendship...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-
that-made-google-huge)

The unicorn within the unicorn was this pair. Unless pair programming gets
mainstreamed, and superpairs are allowed to stick together, this effect will
never be realized to it's full potential.

------
rolltiide
Good study on optimum efficiency.

I don’t really see why people are conflating this with a recommendation or
opinion on upwards mobility. Its just a study on cause and effect to see if a
conclusion can meet a hypothesis without the noise of conjecture.

------
abricot
They had me until they included "managers" in their list...

~~~
bloomer
It’s an odd list. They also include doctors, which besides being a very
routine work, are needed in direct proportion to the local population. Doctors
are already being subsidized to move out of larger cities into places where
they are actually needed in direct contradiction to the economist’s premise.

------
jacquesm
That's got to be some of the biggest nonsense I've ever read, and that from an
institute with such a pedigree. Surprising. No, if you are short of workers of
a certain skillset the idea is not to hover them up for the high density
population centers to monopolize them, they have all the advantages anyway.
The solutions are (1) ensure more of these people are educated and (2) that
the pay disparity between the high density centers and the more remote
location gets leveled to the point that money alone will not cause a brain
drain.

The same is happening on an international level and the effect is terrible. It
causes local shortages of just about all important experts including doctors,
IT specialists and so on.

