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Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

I think you are on to something. The USA has a cultural capital in LA/Hollywood, a financial capital in NYC, a political capital in Washington D.C., and technology capitals in the Bay Area and Seattle.

The UK has all of those too, but they are all located in one city instead of spread out across the country.

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There's also an academic capital, New England (Boston), with Harvard, MIT, Yale, Brown, and two dozen top liberal arts colleges.

Boston (Cambridge) is also the global top biotech and life sciences center.

Just to clarify, Yale and Brown aren't in Boston and 4/8 Ivies aren't in New England. And Ivies aren't even all the top schools.

Top schools really are spread out quite well in the US compared to some countries. Which agrees with the general point that the US isn't super centralized.

Why did you put Brown with Harvard and MIT? Alumnus? Yale isn’t in the same state as MIT and Harvard.

The Ivy's are all in the north east, which I think is your point, but not in Boston nor NewEngland.

And on top of that, even the secondary industry hubs in the US (eg tech in NY or biotech in the Bay) are massive and productive enough to dwarf European industry "capitals".

The geographic diversification of the US really is an enormous asset for the economy.

US and China both have very well off coasts where a large part of the economy’s value add happens in large cities. I don’t think that is lost in the hinterlands in either places. Ever heard of the “coastal elites”?

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