The Bigness Complex and upward mobility at the city scale

 (Bigness Complex: Industry, Labor, and Government in the American Economy, Second Edition is actually the title of a book about corporations, of the time when I was in college.)

Bloomberg reports, "Small Towns in the US Are Better for Upward Mobility, Study Finds"  ("Big cities fuel inequality within and across generations," Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences Nexus), that upward mobility is more present is smaller cities than large ones.  Abstract from the paper:

Urbanization has long fueled a dual narrative: cities are heralded as sources of economic dynamism and wealth creation yet criticized for fostering inequality and a range of social challenges. This paper addresses this tension using a multidisciplinary approach, combining social sciences methods with satellite imagery-based spatial pattern analysis to study the US urban expansion over the past century. We examine the impact of physical urban spatial characteristics (size, population density, and connectedness) on equality of opportunity, measured through intergenerational mobility, as well as its association with levels of income, wealth, and social capital. Our findings confirm that contemporary cities, particularly population-dense and expansive ones, are indeed divisive forces—acting as centers for income and wealth generation but failing to deliver equal opportunities for economic mobility. Perhaps surprisingly, this polarizing dynamic is a recent phenomenon. In the past, the most urbanized regions performed well in terms of income creation and equality of opportunity. Our analysis supports the hypothesis that the mid-20th century marked a pivotal shift toward more unequal and less inclusive patterns of urban growth.

Early research about size of high schools and in-school participation.  This reminds me of another important book I came across in college, Big School, Small School: High School Size and Student Behavior, a classic in the then nascent field of community psychology.  Basically, the point is that in small high schools, more students have more opportunities to pursue extracurricular activities (because there are fewer students to compete with), while in bigger high schools, not only were there fewer opportunities to participate, but there were what I call hogs, "premier" students who are involved in multiple organizations.  

You could say hogs are comparable to the students in small schools, but they usually come from highly resourced families, and the schools provide less opportunity because of the hogs.  

In the book chapter, “Big School, Small School” Revisited, the author suggests that the desired option of type of school depends on the preferred outcome--more students participating, or fewer students participating but at the benefit of quality performance.  While in "Big School? Small School? Does School Size Matter?: Can large schools foster a small school culture?" (Psychology Today), the author suggests creating smaller schools within the context of larger schools is the way to deal with the Big School, Small School phenomenon.

Conclusion.  In short, I'm not surprised.

The "solution," at least to me is to ensure that civic assets are widely distributed and treated as networks ("Neighborhood libraries as nodes in a neighborhood and city-wide network of cultural assets,"- "Change isn't usually that simple: The repatterning of Oklahoma City's Downtown Streetscape,") especially in under resourced places ("National Community Planning Month: Schools as neighborhood anchors"), along the social urbanism approach, complemented by the creation and maintenance of "social infrastructure" programming to get people involved.

-- "An outline for integrated equity planning: concepts and programs," 2017
-- "Equity planning: an update," 2020
-- "Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021 
-- "Black community, economic and social capital: the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago/Chicago," 2021