A very insightful article on big city living

New York, like all of today's most successful cities, thrives by making ideas, not goods. The city's extreme population density enables smart people to learn from each other, which speeds the flow of innovation in fashion and insight in finance. Urban density has spread ideas ever since Socrates harassed his students on the street corners of Athens. We are a social species that learns by watching and listening to the people around us. Big cities contain a concentration of talented people and diverse experiences that turns those cities into forges of human capital that has become ever more valuable in our connected world. No business school or e-learning program can duplicate the skills produced by working at Goldman Sachs or Google.