The Computer Revolution and the Fates of U.S. Cities

The rise of computer technology led to all sorts of winners and losers in the modern labor force. Some jobs (bank tellers, telephone operators, typists and the like) became easier to replace with machines; others (programmers, engineers, data analysts, etc.) became more valuable with their arrival. But it wasn’t just the fortunes of people that changed with these times—those of entire cities shifted, too, according to a new study of urban labor in the personal computer era.

The key to success, it seems, came down to whether or not residents of a given metro area possessed “abstract” skills capable of complementing computer technology, such as problem-solving, analytical reasoning, and complex communication. Metros with an abstract knowledge-base prospered, report University of Oxford researchers Thor Berger and Carl Benedikt Frey in Regional Science and Urban Economics. Those with more “routine” workforces didn’t.