"Is Geography Destiny?"

Ed Glaeser:

Is Geography Destiny?, by Edward Glaeser, Commentary, NY Sun: A trip to India once meant a saffron-scented experience of the exotic. Today, going to Bangalore means a trip to a First World city built on modern technology. Business travelers can fly from Chicago to Shanghai and experience a pretty homogenous world of identically furnished high-rise offices and business hotels and frequent flyer clubs. And you can always get your preferred breakfast beverage: The sun never sets on the Starbucks mermaid.

But the flat world experienced by the globe-trotting management consultant is only the wealthiest and most air-conditioned sliver of the globe. ...[O]ur planet is still a remarkably diverse globe filled with poverty as well as prosperity. In some ways, the differences across space have only increased over time.

Place is powerful indeed. People born in America or Europe are much more likely to end up wealthy and healthy than people born in the developing world. Life expectancy in Sweden and Japan is over 80, while life expectancy in Zimbabwe is under 45. ...

Are differences across space man-made or nature's handiwork? Is globalization homogenizing the world, and is that a good thing? ...

For all its explanatory power, geographic determinism does have some clear limits. It can provide at best a partial explanation for the variety of language and religion, which is the heart and soul of cultural diversity. As much as anything else, our religious beliefs and our languages are formed socially, through interactions with the people around us. Certainly, no aspects of physical landscape can explain why 71% of Americans, but only 11% of Danes, believe in the devil. ...

But nature is far less innocent in the geography of health. Malaria has been pushed back toward the tropics, but there it remains, killing millions in the climates that are kindest to its carriers. Great tsunamis and hurricanes continue to kill thousands on low-lying coastal areas. Volcanoes threaten Tokyo and Seattle. Man can make naturally dangerous places a little safer, but there is no doubt that natural geography matters. ...

Increasing connections between people are reducing the amount of linguistic diversity, but religious heterogeneity, especially of the extreme sort, doesn't appear to be declining. Global inequality is falling as the once-poor nations of India and China become wealthier, but income inequality within and across nations is rising. ... Within America, the heterogeneity of real estate prices and education levels across metropolitan areas is rising, but racial segregation is falling. ...

Increasing global connectedness has brought disease, warfare, and terrorism across oceans and continents. We should not turn away from globalization or immigration because of the costs of connection, but we should, at least, acknowledge those costs. ... [M]uch of the world is still suffering with poverty and disease. That fact is always worth remembering.