Why Living in a City Makes You More Innovative

&quot;...in certain very specific areas.&quot; I grew up near quite rural areas and a certain level of mechanical innovation was expected. You need to use the power take-off on a tractor to run an irrigation pump temporarily until you can buy a new one? Break out the welder. The snow plow broke beyond reasonable repair? Break out the welder.<p>For further evidence, watch any TV show making fun of rednecks. You&#x27;ll typically see things like an excavator used to create a waterfall for everyone to swim through, or someone fastening a lawn chair to a beefed-up, self-propelled push lawnmower to make a riding mower.<p>City life very well might increase innovation in certain fields. I&#x27;d posit that country life increases innovation just as much, but in different areas.

This type of research is interesting and valuable. However, I can&#x27;t help but wonder how much has changed over the last 15 years. The fact that you and I are discussing this article on websites like HN seems to be a great example of technology overcoming some of the barriers of location. A motivated person can easily find ways to interact and form ties. Maybe the impact of geographic location is higher among those less motivated.

Oh look, a fluffy article about how living in a city makes you more innovative. On a website primarily used by city dwellers that pride themselves on being innovative.

I have City associated mostly with high cost of living and lower life standard. In City I would probably spend 60+ hours&#x2F;week in office and on commute just to break even.<p>Outside of City a can have big house for my family, spend 3+ hours&#x2F;day on my hobbies. And even make enough savings for 1 year runway for my startup :-)

i would never say that living in a city or outside a city would make someone more or less innovative.<p>You deal with different problems in and outside cities. I think a mix of both is the best you can get to get more Innovative!<p>When i Study i live in a 2+Million City but when i don&#x27;t study i life in a village with 50+ people.<p>You really cant compare them both...<p>It&#x27;s like people trying to say which programming language by benchmarks... yes go is faster then ruby in some stuff but does this only makes go better? nobody can say because it is a matter of problems to solve and taste of the human that will write the code.<p>just my 2 cents

I&#x27;m a country boy at heart, was born in coal-country appalachians. But I live in Brooklyn now and it&#x27;s great for my love of software. Everyone here is a go-getter and it inspires me. I have met so many others I can work with on side projects, it becomes quite impossible to ignore everyone and it drives you forward. I&#x27;ve seen many idle conversations lead to great things simply through circumstance.

Nope. Solitude is &quot;the #1 habit of highly creative people&quot;. <a href="http://zenhabits.net/creative-habit/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;zenhabits.net&#x2F;creative-habit&#x2F;</a><p>Big cities are full of noise and distractions.

It also depends on the type of inhabitants in the city. Pre-war Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin were particularly innovative. Today Berlin is the most innovative city in Germany.<p>In the US, New York City&#x2F;Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn near Manhattan are particularly innovative, again because of the type of inhabitants it attracts. San Francisco, SV, LA, Austin, Seattle, are all innovative in different ways.

Correlation does not imply causation.<p>Relevant XKCDs:<p><a href="http://xkcd.com/552/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;552&#x2F;</a> <a href="http://xkcd.com/852/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;852&#x2F;</a> <a href="http://xkcd.com/1138/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;xkcd.com&#x2F;1138&#x2F;</a>

Paul Graham wrote on this same subject (<a href="http://paulgraham.com/cities.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;paulgraham.com&#x2F;cities.html</a>). A bit more anecdotal, but convincing nonetheless.