Why Big Cities Thrive, and Smaller Ones Are Being Left Behind<br />How states rank in being disrupted by<br />foreign trade and automation*<br />Rates of recovery from recession<br />in the 10 states of greatest disruption<br />How states rank in being disrupted<br />by foreign trade and automation*<br />The difference in performance widened: Private employment grew almost twice as fast in large metropolitan<br />areas as it did in small ones from the trough of the recession, in 2009, to 2015.<br />To get a sense of the future, he selected big and small metropolitan areas only in the 10 states most subjected to economic disruption — as defined by the penetration of automation<br />and job displacement as a result of foreign trade — to tease out the effects of these transformative forces.<br />For starters, big cities have a greater variety of employers<br />and thus more job opportunities in a richer mix of industries than do small cities, whose fortunes are often tied to those of just a small number of employers.<br />Whether they rely on steel mills or coal mines, or a hospital or a manufacturing plant,<br />small metropolitan areas are having a hard time adapting to economic transitions.
