The prevailing geographic model for high-technology industrial organization has been the "nerdistan," a sprawling, car-oriented suburb organized around office parks. This seems to contradict a basic insight of urban theory, which associates dense urban centers with higher levels of innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. This article examines the geography of recent venture capital finance startups across U.S. metros and within a subset of them by neighborhood. It concludes that the model is changing. The suburban model might have been an historical aberration, and innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship are realigning in the same urban centers that traditionally fostered them.

Going forward, growth and prosperity in communities around the world will depend on three enablers of creativity, which the authors call 'the 3Ts of economic development': Technology, Talent and Tolerance. They share findings from their Global Creativity Index, indicating which countries are ahead of the pack-and which are falling behind. They also show that the divide between the Creative Class and the Service Class lies at the root of the growing inequality that we are seeing across advanced and developing nations alike.