Historical figures have moved to cities in the same way for centuries
news.nationalgeographic.com
news.nationalgeographic.com
Overview Article: http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/07/the-smartest-people-move...
Paper (paid gateway, can't find free): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614...
Anecdotally, from my own experience this isn't surprising at all. I grew up in a small town, and wanted to move to a big city since I was about ten years old. I just got bored in that small town. Seeing the same < 100 people every day, going to the same places... It's simply not as stimulating. When I went to boarding school, I found that many of my peers from similar backgrounds felt the same. Eight years later, almost all of us are living in a big city. Maybe this will change as we begin to have families, but it does seem that we all had an instinctive desire toward the draw of big cities.
The conclusion that "the brainy" have moved to cities at any different rate then the general populous is in no way supported by the source paper. In fact it states explicitly that historical figures are just the only people we have good data for and implies they represent patterns in the population as a whole.
Sometimes you run into people from your field, sometimes from other fields, sometimes nobody at all. But it's a good way to recharge your brain, increase productivity, and merge disparate ideas.
Your mileage may vary, but I really really need that.
But I accept that this may not be a helpful environment for everyone. I know I have to balance this need with the needs of my SO, who feels similarly about having forests and lakes nearby (which certainly soothe me, but don't rank as high as having humans about).
Back home[1] I live in downtown area so there's plenty of people at all times, but at the same time you can see the Alps from almost anywhere in the city on most days. And they're just an hour's drive away.
I imagine a lot of the smaller cities in Europe fulfill these criteria.
[1] Ljubljana - population about 300k, during workdays swells up to about 500k people. Small, but still lively.
That doesn't seem to be a really high bar. For example, the county I live in has approximately 140k people and a population density of 128 / square mile. I think that most people would regard it as pretty rural, and it is in flyover country.
Yet I can still go out any day of the week to any one of a sizable number of bars and expect them to be decently full. I've run into all kinds of interesting people...though I don't expect to ever run into anybody famous.
I've traveled a lot and I don't mind big cities, but I've never really understood what they have to offer that I don't already have, barring certain kinds of professional network effects (e.g. Silicon Valley for startups, LA for the movie industry.)
In my experience there is a big difference between "sizable number of bars ... decently full" and "a lot of bars/clubs/places ... full".
In my home town (300k people) you get many of bars that are pretty full a lot of the time, some bars that are full-ish some of the time, and a lot of bars that are mostly empty most of the time. And nightclubs, god help you if your taste in music is not mainstream. You will go to a club on a super duper full night and there will be 20 people there.
Compare that to SF. More bars than I could visit in my lifetime. Most of them decently full most of the time. Most of them packed on party nights. No matter what music I decide to listen to, the club will be packed. As obscure as I can bear, club will still be packed.
And SF is not even a giant city. It's got less than 3x the population of my home town.
Lobbying for height restrictions? Lobbying against the next Michelangelo.
On the contrary, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/a096d1d0-d2ec-11e2-aac2-00144...
But thanks for the link, I found it an interesting read.