The success of big cities reflects the deepening of the gap between cities and countryside

Small towns also attract educated workers, but struggle to compete for the country's most popular jobs and projects, while rural areas lag behind.

Over the past 10 years, employment in US cities has increased by 7% and the number of businesses in these places by 11%, while employment has contracted in non-metropolitan areas and many businesses in these cities have not changed much, according to data from the Department of Labor.

Big changes in the way people work and live in relation to the past generation are driving change. While global competition is drying up manufacturing jobs in small cities, the United States has become more dependent on the growth of knowledge jobs and services, which tend to proliferate in dense locations.

Five cities – New York, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco – accounted for one-third of all Fortune 500 seats and half of Fortune 500 corporate profits last year, according to research by Richard Florida, a professor. at the University of Toronto. and his colleagues. The Washington area, which had only four headquarters in 1975, had 17 head offices last year. New York was 70, more than any other American city.

"For those who watched [the Amazon competition] and by serving as a sort of indicator of the situation of the coasts and the city center, they tell us that we are still at a time when the rich enrich themselves, to both in terms of people, businesses and now cities, "said Joseph Parilla, a member of the Brookings Institution.

When startups started moving into cities in the 1990s, many experts predicted that because the Internet allowed people to work from anywhere, information technology workers scattered throughout the country, companies seeking cheap office space.

Places like Silicon Valley and Seattle have proven that clusters of highly skilled workers fuel innovation faster. These supercharged places were already doing well, attracting more educated workers who wanted to live in neighborhoods that were good for walking with good restaurants and trendy entertainment.

"Every long-distance Internet economy giant who chooses a traditional city only reinforces the belief that new technologies work well in dense environments," said Edward Glaeser, professor of economics at Harvard University. .

When Amazon announced that it had chosen its finalist cities in 20 cities earlier this year, cities like Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis and Pittsburgh saw a chance to spread the country's economic growth. Their shortage of technological personnel places them in an insurmountable disadvantage.

In Dallas, former Amazon leader Matt Rutledge said he wanted his city to move into QG2, but worried about the shortage of tech talent. He said that Dallas had many developers in the energy and finance sectors, but that few of them were looking for work. "I had a hard time finding a large pool of talented developers available in the job market," he said.

Diversity was also high on Amazon's priority lists for her new home, based on her initial RFP and people familiar with her thinking. The company was looking for a place where many women and many ethnicities were present.

Among Amazon's US finalist cities, the metropolitan areas of New York and Washington rank third and fourth respectively for the most diverse populations, according to an analysis of census figures by the Wall Street Journal. They are behind Los Angeles and Miami. The metropolitan areas of Indianapolis, Nashville and Pittsburgh took the top three spots on the diversity list.

The new concentration of work could influence the American political map. Graduate university workers are turning more and more to the Democratic Party. The influx of skilled jobs in New York and Washington will likely make these areas even more democratic, said Karlyn Bowman, senior researcher at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

"This could exacerbate the urban-rural divide; there is no question, "she said.

Shifting political preferences have emerged in Arlington, where Amazon plans to locate its office in Virginia, and in the 17 cities and counties of northern Virginia that are part of the Washington Metro. In the 2000 presidential election, Republican George W. Bush won 49% of the vote, beating Democrat Al Gore by 2 percentage points. In 2016, the region had switched to become a strong Democrat, Hillary Clinton garnering 60% of the vote against 34% for Donald Trump.

Johnna Reeder, former president of the group that prepared Cincinnati's bid for Amazon, said the city had sought to impress society through its efforts to become a technology hub. It was not enough. "We just did not have the volume, the scale," she said.

Still, it's not really a winning economy to take for larger metropolitan areas. Professor Glaeser said small and medium-sized cities with an educated population continue to benefit from their combination of skilled labor and lower costs, albeit on a smaller scale.

In Pittsburgh, for example, officials said the high quality of life in the city was essential to the development of the technology sector of the ancient city of steel. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald noted that parks, cultural facilities, professional sports teams and major universities in the region were helping to attract large companies such as Uber Technologies Inc.

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Kenny McDonald, head of the economic development group responsible for Columbus' candidacy to the Amazon, said city officials were looking to make it a better place to live in hopes of building a base for the city. talents that would then attract employers. It was a change from the old business models focused on getting jobs first.

The unemployment rate in Columbus reached 3.6% in September, lower than the rate in the New York region (3.9%).

Scott Calvert, Paul Overberg, Dante Chinni and Valerie Bauerlein contributed to this article.

Write to Shayndi Raice at [email protected] and Janet Adamy at [email protected]