Originally published September 30. 2017 on Medium

For those who follow my incoherent Twitter ramblings, I apologize for any repetition.

Human commerce has historically centered on trade. Trade is a mutually beneficial exchange occuring at a certain point in time. For trade to occur, the two involved parties have to meet, or their goods do. What good does a horse in Leicester do a man in London when the man in London needs to ride it?

Roads are how goods are transported from buyers to sellers, and also affect the movement of humans. (People usually take the easiest path, and move along roads).

Cities facilitate the trade of ideas, skills, and goods (economic growth). From Rome to London to New York City, great cities have almost invariably developed at the intersections of roads. “All roads lead to Rome” probably developed because Rome was where all the roads crossed, so Rome became a city, so all other roads were built towards or from Rome.

Where roads cross, people meet. One man’s ideas pollinate another’s. Goods are exchanged, leading to growth for both parties. The same with work, leading to comparative advantages.

I’d like to avoid the overly simplistic assertion that wherever roads come together cities spring up. That ignores that roads are usually built to or towards something. However, once two roads, rivers, or other mediums of travel cross, and reach an undefined critical mass, roads are built with the crossroads as a destination, and a city is borne.

Think of New York City. It had a seaport and was a small outpost in a small backwards hemisphere. As the riches of the American continent were discovered, an area to sell goods became more and more important. As we’ve already established, people choose the easier path when they can; since there was a trading port (roads, a port) in New York, more and more roads and people converged on the area. This led to a self-sustaining growth curve; more people wanted to come to trade in New York because there were more people trading in New York, with people from all over the world. Wherever new roads crossed, ports werediscovered, or trading centers staked out, cities sprang up.

This elementary thesis is easily proved by falsification, e.g. the removal of several major roads without replacements with similar geographic nexuses inevitably leads to the decline of that area. Look at towns who lost their railroads, or Mississippi River towns as the Mississippi lost its role as a major road.

As Americans move to online shopping for most of their daily needs, the current distribution/logistics model will shift even more to concentrated areas of development for specialized products. Those products will be shipped from central warehouses, out along highways (or drone routes), to progressively smaller warehouses, to someone’s doorstep.

The Interstate Highway System will increase in value as this happens; delivery will need to be faster and more efficient to maximize shipping efficiency.

So we know that we will need billions of more feet in warehouse space. Humans are increasingly clustered in a tri-coastal region ((South)East Coast, West Coast, Texas). As these areas become more expensive due to the concentration of high g individuals, and production more automated, domestic production will migrate to or remain in areas with cheap labor and input costs. The Midwest especially will see more of these jobs as it offers a central shipping location. (Provided, of course, that China doesn’t totally destroy all American manufacturing).

Ignoring most other factors, a quick look at Google Maps should predict areas that will experience explosive growth in the next ten years. There needs to be a minimum size cut off here, too, to have enough transportation and construction labor available. As well as a bad governance strike (I’m looking at you Chicago and your suburbs)

1. Des Moines (80/35 nexus, centrally located, cheap land)
2. Kansas City
3. Indianapolis
4. Columbus
5. Dallas
6. St. Louis

Much of this growth rate is due to a move towards cities and urban areas started by the industrial revolution. the ramifications of the information revolution are unknown. One thing that is clear is that the rate of urbanization isn’t slowing down, and the cities listed above will benefit from their status as crossroads.