Hey friends,
Welcome to Regions, an occasional newsletter that will cover, among other things, the history and future of regional competition, renewal, and progress.
A bit about me
I’m a Policy and Research Associate at the Economic Innovation Group, a small think tank in Washington focusing on policies to spur inclusive economic growth and boost dynamism across the American economy1. Originally from New Jersey, I’m a proud graduate of Rutgers-New Brunswick and the University of Chicago. Follow me on Twitter @cojobrien.
What I’m doing here
I want to keep this newsletter low-pressure, a place to jot down thoughts on what I’m reading or thinking about that won’t neatly fit elsewhere. These posts will be a mixture of reflections on what I’m reading in economic history or political economy and current policy issues.
I’m particularly interested in big picture questions around why certain regions (think: cities and sub-national units) are able to become such dynamic hubs of innovation, creativity, and high culture while others don’t. Further questions that interest me:
Why have so many thriving cities throughout history collapsed or faded into irrelevancy?
What differentiates those which dramatically rebound?
To what extent do cities even have real agency in a world dominated by large nation-states and truly global markets?
Unfortunately I’m just A Guy Like You, floating through this unimaginably complex universe, trying to learn a bit along the way. I suspect most of what I write about these questions will be, to some degree, embarrassingly wrong. I hope you meet my wrongness with generosity. Learning in public, even in an age of intense online scrutiny and vitriol, is seriously underrated.
See you soon,
Connor
Views expressed here are my own, especially the wrong ones, and probably the fault of someone else’s bad tweets anyway.