NewGeography.com blogs

Between economic development strategies targeting software firms, the deflation of the tech bubble, talk of "broadband," and recent consternation about failing publishing business models, we seem to hear a lot about the information sector. Recognizing that, it's interesting that the information sector only comprises about 2.2% of total employment in the US.

On top of that, after a big decline since the tech bubble peak in 2001, in February the sector has receded to just more than 2.9 million jobs, a level not seen since April 1996.

The telecommunications subsector accounts for just more than 1/3 of information employment, and saw the biggest boom and bust. Publishing has declined since 2000, and motion picture and sound recording industries are larger than either software publishing or data processing.

Looking at percent change, software has recovered from the tech bust, while the movie business has remained steady since topping off in 2000. Worse off are telecom and data processing, which continue the post bust slide.

One fifth of the jobs in the publishing industry have vanished since 2001.

This is not to say technology occupations are not a key part of the nation's economy and productivity gains over the past decade, but the importance of the information sector itself is overstated. High-tech industries that produce products generally fall into manufacturing sectors while things like systems design, web design, or even custom programming are business services.

The next post will look at regional shifts in information employment, but until then check out Ross Devol's more comprehensive study on regional tech poles.

Other Information services includes: news syndicates, libraries, archives, exclusive Internet publishing and/or broadcasting, and Web Search Portals.

Shortly after I told you that Bloomberg.com is reporting a running total of the money the U.S. government has pledged and spent for bailouts and economic stimulus, reporters Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry updated the totals: So far, $12.8 trillion has been pledged – an additional $1.2 trillion over the earlier report. The total disbursed through March 31, 2009 stands at $4.2 trillion. The Federal Reserve is still committed to providing the largest share at $7.8 trillion, followed by the U.S. Treasury $2.7 trillion and FDIC $2.0 trillion.

The national debt currently stands at $11.3 trillion — versus an authorized limit of $12.1 trillion. Spending, lending and bailouts by the Federal Reserve are not counted toward the limit.

This week, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is in China. Mainland China holds $767.9 billion of Treasury securities at the end of March 2009 or about 7 percent of the total national debt. Japan, the second largest major foreign holder, has $686.7 billion.

Notes: Data from Department of the Treasury. Caribbean Banking Centers (Carib Bnkng Ctrs) include Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Panama, and British Virgin Islands. Oil exporters include Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria.

The U.S. bailout commitment of $11.6 trillion equals 89 percent of U.S. 2008 gross domestic product (GDP).

Jonathan Weber writes that "Most demographic and market indicators suggest that growth and development across the country are moving away from the suburban and exurban fringe and toward center-cities and close-in suburbs," in an article for MSNBC entitled Demographic trends now favor downtown: Growth across the country moves away from suburban and exurban fringe.

One might wonder what country Weber is writing about. In the United States, growth and development continues to be concentrated in suburban and exurban areas. Moreover, strong domestic migration continues away from the center cities and close-in suburbs, as evidenced by the fact that between 2000 and 2008, 4.6 million domestic migrants left the core counties of the metropolitan areas over 1,000,000 population, while 2.0 million moved into the suburban counties.

The case is apparently furthered by the obligatory reference and photograph of The Model, Portland, Oregon. However, even in Portland, the suburbs are doing far better than the core. Since 2000, the suburbs have gained 106,000 domestic migrants, while the core county (Multnomah) has lost 4,000 domestic migrants. The IRS micro-data further indicates that the core continues to lose net domestic migration to the suburban counties.

It appears that the only trend indicating that the suburbs are losing out to central cities is the exponential increase in articles blindly parroting “death of the suburbs” dogma.

More than once in this space, I’ve said that derivative financial products set up a perverse incentive where investors have more to gain from the failure of companies and homeowners than their success. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look at the longer version of my description of the causes and consequences of the current crisis to understand how failed financial innovations, like credit default swaps, contributed to the meltdown of 2008. I wrote that article back in November.

Once again, only Bloomberg.com is out front on this story. More hedge funds are catching onto the casino-like qualities of betting against America’s economic success. Reporters Salas, Harrington and Paulden could have quoted my NewGeography writings directly: “companies [have] more credit-default swaps outstanding than the bonds the contracts protected…” and, referring to Clear Channel Communications, “some of its creditors stand to profit from its failure.”

Told ya’ so!

Political “spin” descended to a new low today with the publication of survey results purporting to suggest that suburban residents and workers are pining for city life. The Washington Business Journal dutifully reported that Today’s suburban workers and residents miss the amenities of cities. The survey sponsor, the Fairfax County (Virginia) Economic Development Authority noted that “almost half of workers who work in the suburbs, say they want more public transportation, more housing options, greater access to useable green space or a better variety of job opportunities – typical features of cities.”

All of this may sound impressive until you realize that no one urban “amenity” was mentioned by more than 25 percent of respondents. That means, for example, that 77 percent of responding suburban residents did not consider “access to convenient public transportation” important enough to mention, while 23 percent did.

According to the Economic Development Authority, the survey indicates that 52 percent of residents “say they would move to a community that offered more of these” urban amenities.

The survey got the moving part right, but missed by a mile on where they are moving. From 2000 to 2008, more than 100,000 domestic migrants left Fairfax County, 11 percent of its 2000 population. But they didn’t move to the city (Washington) or to more urban Alexandria or Arlington, because all of these lost domestic migrants as well. Indeed, the only counties in the Washington, DC area that gained domestic migrants are further from the city than Fairfax County.