Just like physical gravity, the economic attraction between two places is directly proportional to their "mass" (population, GDP, or concentration of human capital) and inversely proportional to the distance between them.
A massive pool of human capital exerts a massive "gravitational pull" that easily yanks solo individuals out of smaller, distant pools.
Human capital moves toward existing human capital because skills and ideas compound when people gather closely together, much like musical instruments tuning together in an orchestra.
It's not exactly like Gresham's Law, which was the first thing that came to mind.
More like the "network effect": Where there are more people generally like you, the better off you'll be.
Or like what happens when two partially-inflated balloons are connected by a valve, and the valve is opened: the balloon with the least air in it loses air to the one that is more distended.
A different reason, which might actually be what the father is pointing at, is: If the son moves to the country he will cut himself off from the network which he needs in order to get promoted. Likewise if a highly educated person moves to a place where his skills are rare, he might lose the network which he relies on to get new work. Then if his work 'out there' disappears after some years he will be lost. Going outside the places where the network lives is a high risk, marginal reward strategy. So it is rarely pursued, even by people who don't have any social affinity for other highly educated people.
the important thing is to quote my favorite author and book, very good! though gogol ridiculed the urban pecking order as well as tending fictitious serfs, human capital or org knowledge does gather for compatibility and interest, both technical pools and corporate leadership. the enjoyment of cultural affinity seems to coincide with operation need, there's various facilities of f2f interaction especially for more subtle and complex projects. which may be one reason bullet trains are important
The Economic Gravity Model (Reilly's Law adapted)
Just like physical gravity, the economic attraction between two places is directly proportional to their "mass" (population, GDP, or concentration of human capital) and inversely proportional to the distance between them.
A massive pool of human capital exerts a massive "gravitational pull" that easily yanks solo individuals out of smaller, distant pools.
Human capital moves toward existing human capital because skills and ideas compound when people gather closely together, much like musical instruments tuning together in an orchestra.
It's not exactly like Gresham's Law, which was the first thing that came to mind.
More like the "network effect": Where there are more people generally like you, the better off you'll be.
Or like what happens when two partially-inflated balloons are connected by a valve, and the valve is opened: the balloon with the least air in it loses air to the one that is more distended.
Hmm. Usually I'm better at analogies than this.
Ya. But with video calls, Internet, and airplanes, things are changing fast.
Flying cars will be do even more.
A different reason, which might actually be what the father is pointing at, is: If the son moves to the country he will cut himself off from the network which he needs in order to get promoted. Likewise if a highly educated person moves to a place where his skills are rare, he might lose the network which he relies on to get new work. Then if his work 'out there' disappears after some years he will be lost. Going outside the places where the network lives is a high risk, marginal reward strategy. So it is rarely pursued, even by people who don't have any social affinity for other highly educated people.
the important thing is to quote my favorite author and book, very good! though gogol ridiculed the urban pecking order as well as tending fictitious serfs, human capital or org knowledge does gather for compatibility and interest, both technical pools and corporate leadership. the enjoyment of cultural affinity seems to coincide with operation need, there's various facilities of f2f interaction especially for more subtle and complex projects. which may be one reason bullet trains are important