THE DEMOGRAPHICS: "Manifest Destinations: The urban share of the American economy," by Marc Bain, Newsweek, 26 January 2009.

Not exactly suggesting a communitarian future of localism, distributed small-townism, etc. as the answer for complexity.

Twelve percent of the land area, but 65% of population, 67% of research universities, 68% of jobs, 75% of grad degree holders, 76% of knowledge economy jobs, 78% of patents, 79% of air cargo, 81% of R&D employment, 92% of air passenger boardings, 94% of venture capital funding, and 95% of public-transit passenger miles.

Some are kind of obvious (what, not much mass transit in the rural areas?), but others suggest that clustering makes sense economically, so metro concentrations must make sense in their native resilience. Big cities are mega-connected and all that networking allows for workarounds galore.

Good example? Would you rather be poor in the big city or in the small town?

The big city allows for all sorts of cheap connectivity, whereas the small town leaves one fairly isolated.

And I say that as someone who grew up in a decidedly non-prosperous small town.