The Danger of Monoculture

Detroit in 1950 was the richest city in America per capita. Its single industry — automobile manufacturing — produced wages, tax revenues, and civic infrastructure that were the envy of every other metropolitan area. By every metric the economists used, Detroit was thriving. Jacobs looked at Detroit and saw a city dying. What she saw was monoculture — an economy so dominated by a single industry that the diversity from which genuine economic vitality springs had been systematically suppressed. The automakers were so large, so profitable, and so dominant that they absorbed the talent, capital, and civic attention that a diverse economy requires. The small enterprises Jacobs identified as the seedbed of innovation could not compete. When the automobile industry contracted, Detroit had nothing to fall back on.