Keep your enemies close (and your friends, too)

Density, Innovation, and how their connected.

Hey friends, welcome to 2022. You may have noticed (or maybe you didn’t, and that’s ok too) that I’ve been absent for a bit longer than I said I would be. I hope the holiday season treated you well. Coming out of 2021, I have realized I needed a bit of a recharge. I’ve been deep down digging through several books and otherwise taking a hiatus from writing on these subjects as I did through 2021, but have no fear; I do plan to make a comeback soon.

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For today, I’m popping back into your inboxes to share a brief thought highlighted by Alan Jacobs in one of his recent newsletters.

In his article, Jacobs quotes a piece written by Ted Gioia in his newsletter, The Honest Broker. You can see the whole thing here; it’s essentially a piece about some works he has not and probably won’t write.

You Don't Need a Mentor—Find a Nemesis Instead

Into the piece, Gioia explains:

I believe that my Nemesis Concept even explains key developments in music and the arts. A recent study of composers during the period 1750-1899 discovered that they were significantly more productive when they lived in close proximity to other composers. The most likely way of accounting for this, to my mind, is the inherent rivalry that arises when creative people encounter each other daily.

I’d even guess that the extraordinary impact of New York on the history of American music is partly explained in the same way. New York musicians are highly competitive—did you know that?—much more so than the West Coast players I dealt with during my formative years. Growing up in LA, I found that the geography was so spread out that musicians could operate in quasi-isolation, only encountering their peers at the rehearsal or gig. This wasn’t always a bad thing. The sprawling nature of SoCal urban development allowed for a greater degree of creative freedom and independence—allowing many experimental or avant-garde musicians to develop in Los Angeles (Ornette, Dolphy, Cage, Mingus, etc.) without having to worry about the groupthink or prevailing norms. But that came at the cost of cultural intensity. New York, in contrast, possessed that intensity as an inevitable result of its population density—three times as great as LA’s—which puts musicians in frequent contact with one another. In other words, it’s much easier to find your nemesis in Manhattan.¹

As I said, the whole piece is worth a read, but I find it fascinating to think about how density has played a role here.

Writing in Bloomberg City Lab about the relationship between Density and Innovation, Richard Florida notes:

For too long, we’ve seen innovation as something that takes place in corporate R&D (research and development) centers, university laboratories, and suburban office parks. But as Jane Jacobs long ago said, new innovations are more likely to come from the density and diversity of urban neighborhoods.²

As we move into 2022, in a time when (for a good reason over the past couple of years) it’s been effortless not to be in physical proximity to others. For many, “creativity” is happening in their own “vacuum”. Others, like Gioia and Floria stated, thrive in diversity stimulation and competition. So, as you move forward, take a moment to consider:

• How can you create opportunities for you to engage with others?

• What life changes might you need to consider to encourage more innovation in your own life, if that’s something you desire?

And with that, thanks for reading. See you again soon.

1. You Don't Need a Mentor—Find a Nemesis Instead

2. The Particular Creativity of Dense Urban Neighborhoods