Beautiful and articulate observations, Simon, bless you. Reminds me of part of a speech Kurt Vonnegut gave: “There is a snide saying to this effect: The big dreams go to New York City. The little dreams stay home. The biggest dreams in fact stay home. They build cities like this one, with its hospitals and universities and libraries and theaters and concert halls, and supremely civilized gathering places like the Athenaeum. I say to all stay-at-homes, congratulations. Dream on, dream on.”
Smaller groups outperform large ones in efficiency, creativity, and change. They are more likely to produce disruptive innovations than large groups. You take some like minded people and put them in close proximity and mix in a little boredom interesting things are bound to happen.
I think you're right culture is created by the small and the set apart. However, the cultivation of what is small and set apart is always available to the city. It takes a lot more work, but it is still there just the same.
do you think that palo alto still offers a great starting place for the next generation? everyone calls in NIMBY central from what i can see. i confess i am a georgist, and i think that the land owners immeditiately start to choke a city as soon as it is formed. so it makes a lot of sense to me that these places you describe of sleepy suburbs or small towns providing a new chance for cooperation, hardwork, and genius to cause great progress. they cause city creation as @sollucidity's vonnegut quote mentions. i don't attribute their success to being specifically not in a city per se, i would attribute it being not as affected by land monopoly. (knowledge monopoly in the form of patents would be another thing that's pretty tightly linked to these four trillion dollar companies.)
these are some really beautiful observations that have brought to tangible words an underlying, invisible sentiment i’ve felt for years.
however no one is saying current silicon valley isn’t successful by financial means or doesn’t have a culture oriented to this goal. folks think SF is hardly a city because the culture outside of “VC culture” is dead there. there is no culture in a region where majority of ultra rich tech men have driven rent prices to unliveable standards and homelessness is at an all time high.
you mentioned that market cap is not the only standard in which we should take into account when observing the power of small spaces, but i would’ve liked to see that fleshed out more with jazz and rome.
Beautiful and articulate observations, Simon, bless you. Reminds me of part of a speech Kurt Vonnegut gave: “There is a snide saying to this effect: The big dreams go to New York City. The little dreams stay home. The biggest dreams in fact stay home. They build cities like this one, with its hospitals and universities and libraries and theaters and concert halls, and supremely civilized gathering places like the Athenaeum. I say to all stay-at-homes, congratulations. Dream on, dream on.”
Smaller groups outperform large ones in efficiency, creativity, and change. They are more likely to produce disruptive innovations than large groups. You take some like minded people and put them in close proximity and mix in a little boredom interesting things are bound to happen.
I loved this. Felt like waiting for a long time for it following this tweet about The Forest: https://x.com/simonsarris/status/1566537507394801667
Your tweet originally inspired me to write a counter argument: https://benparry.substack.com/p/city-culture
I think you're right culture is created by the small and the set apart. However, the cultivation of what is small and set apart is always available to the city. It takes a lot more work, but it is still there just the same.
Thank you 🙏
Thoughtful read, thank you!
do you think that palo alto still offers a great starting place for the next generation? everyone calls in NIMBY central from what i can see. i confess i am a georgist, and i think that the land owners immeditiately start to choke a city as soon as it is formed. so it makes a lot of sense to me that these places you describe of sleepy suburbs or small towns providing a new chance for cooperation, hardwork, and genius to cause great progress. they cause city creation as @sollucidity's vonnegut quote mentions. i don't attribute their success to being specifically not in a city per se, i would attribute it being not as affected by land monopoly. (knowledge monopoly in the form of patents would be another thing that's pretty tightly linked to these four trillion dollar companies.)
these are some really beautiful observations that have brought to tangible words an underlying, invisible sentiment i’ve felt for years.
however no one is saying current silicon valley isn’t successful by financial means or doesn’t have a culture oriented to this goal. folks think SF is hardly a city because the culture outside of “VC culture” is dead there. there is no culture in a region where majority of ultra rich tech men have driven rent prices to unliveable standards and homelessness is at an all time high.
you mentioned that market cap is not the only standard in which we should take into account when observing the power of small spaces, but i would’ve liked to see that fleshed out more with jazz and rome.