Benefits of density hiding in plain sight

I realized yesterday that sometimes you find the benefits of density hiding in plain sight.

Ed Glaeser wrote, "Cities are the absence of physical space between people and companies. They are proximity, density, closeness. They enable us to work and play together, and their success depends on the demand for physical connection."

And there is strong evidence that greater density makes cities more productive.

Why is this? Firstly, there are the reduced costs - particularly transport costs - of doing business.

Secondly, density can facilitate learning. The transmission and accumulation of skills happen more rapidly when more people are in the same space.

Thirdly, and critically, large, dense cities allow for better matching. There is better matching between employers and employees with people finding specific and specialist roles that they are particularly well suited to. A recent study suggested that this was a significant driver of higher productivity in larger cities.

But matching between buyers and suppliers matters too. Consider the photo above that I took last night.

• I want to get a portrait done.
• You should be able to get a portrait done anywhere.
• A pet portrait.
• Well, any decent size place will have somewhere that specializes in pet portraits.
• But I don't want someone to do the whole portrait. I want them to start it and let me finish it.
• OK, that is fairly niche. You are only going to find somewhere for that in a very big city.
• And I want to finish it while having a drink at a bar.
• OK....
• And the bar needs to be dog friendly, so I can bring my dog in a costume.
• Yeah, you are going to have to go to New York for that.

Of course, New York is a city where thousands of very niche customer needs are met by specialist providers every hour of every day. It is a city where it has been taken for granted for many decades that you can get papaya juice with a hot dog, an unlikely but (apparently!) delicious combination.

I recently wrote more about why density matters for the Property Chronicle. Please take a look.