Earlier this week Richard Florida published on article on CityLab talking about the relationship between tech innovation (in cities) and inequality. Specifically, the article deals with the correlation between venture capital investment and a variety of factors, such as monthly housing costs, wage and income inequality, and so on.

The intent of the piece was to address the growing backlash against tech workers – in places like San Francisco – who have become the symbol for the growing gap between the rich and poor.

The strongest correlation appears to exist between venture capital investment and housing costs. As the amount of venture capital goes up, so do housing costs – which probably shouldn’t surprise you. The rich start outbidding the poor for housing. Note: The two outlying dots at the top right, in the graph below, are Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

But when it comes to inequality, the relationship isn’t so clear. For wage inequality, there seems to be a relationship. But for the broader income inequality measure, the relationship is fairly weak. Here’s the graph:

So this is not as black and white as it might seem. Regardless, Florida ends the piece with the following statement (that I think is spot on):

It’s time to stop pointing fingers and get on with the far more important task of harnessing the urban tech revolution to create a new urban middle class and a more inclusive urbanism—one in which many more workers and residents can participate, and one from which many more can benefit.

The answer is not to stop innovating. That would be counterproductive. We should be be encouraging innovation, but at the same time figuring out how best to harness it for society as a whole.

Tomorrow, I’ll touch a bit more on how we might go about doing that. I have a post planned that I think will tie in really nicely to this discussion. So stay tuned.

In light of Bill de Blasio being elected yesterday as the new mayor of New York City, I thought I would post this interesting graphic I found on Atlantic Cities:

What it shows is a clear split.

If you live in Manhattan or nearby areas in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, you most likely saw your property values rise from 2008 to 2012. However, if you live on the outskirts of the city, you may have seen your property values fall as much as 20% (the darkest red areas).

This shift back to city centers has been well documented and labeled, by some, as The Great Inversion. But in many ways it’s a symptom of a greater phenomenon at work: rising income inequality.

It’s happening in New York. It’s happening in Toronto. And in many other global cities. New York VC Fred Wilson believes that the solution lies in the three Es: education, empowerment and entrepreneurship. That sounds like a great start to me.

A couple of months ago I had coffee with an urban planner who had recently relocated from the Bay Area back to Toronto. One of the interesting things that came up during our conversation - that I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to before - was how corporate shuttle buses (from the likes of Apple, Google, Facebook and so on) could be impacting cities.

On the surface, they seem fairly benign. Most of the big tech companies are located outside of San Francisco, but young smart people today like living in cities. So let’s run shuttles buses that take people back and forth. Employees get to live the life they want and employers get broader access to human capital. It seems like a win-win.

But in reality, some argue that these shuttles buses reinforce a powerful trend already plaguing the region: The alienation of non-tech people. George Packer of the New Yorker called the buses "a vivid emblem of the tech boom’s stratifying effect in the Bay Area."

What I wonder though is to what extent these buses are not just an emblem, but an actual driver of stratification and other negative outcomes. The first concern that comes to my mind is the possibility for this to lead to infrastructure disinvestment. Already there seems to be a philosophical divide around transit (see BART strike).

Wired just published an interesting set of maps that try and map “Silicon Valley’s gentrification problem through corporate shuttle routes." They’re worth checking out. It’s also interesting to see how they collected the data; it was a fairly messy process.