The Aggregating Magnetism of Proximity

Proximity as a variable has deep roots in areas of study like sociology and psychology (list 3 studies), but has been de-emphasized as an important contributor in other fields, like geopolitics and economics.  The “flattening” of the world via technological advances has seemingly crumbled the geographic walls and laid waste to the secretive concentrations of power and inequity. 

Much of the research and focus on the changing world has been the symbiotic rise of economic and quasi-democratic reforms across the globe and new powers (Brazil, China) threatening to usurp the old (Europe, the US).  The other variable, of course, is the continued tension of countries with significant natural resources that continue to be key economic players despite sustained autocratic ruling (what Tom Friedman calls “The First Law of Petropolitics”. 

But whereas before countries were considered autonomous entities, now much of the world can be described in terms of clusters or “blocs”, and economics and politics have followed, with just as many failures (the Euro?) as successes (example).  Regardless of the outcome of specific initiatives, it is absolutely true that the old boundaries don’t matter as much as they used to, and the new boundaries are and will continue to be in flux.  In the old way, political and economic battles had clear winners and losers, and the losers might take 50 years, or perhaps forever, to recover.  In the old way, when you played the game of thrones, you either won or you died.  In the new way, winning intimates a responsibility to look after the loser and have a continued partnership for growth – winning just means your margin is larger.  Winning means that a rising tide lifts all boats, but some boats lift significantly faster. 

With as much chaos in the world, with an unclear rule set and nuanced definition of what success and failure means, it would seem on first glance that the disintermediation of information would compel entities (countries, companies, individuals) to create partnerships agnostic to any interest except their own rational economic self-interest.  Therefore geography, proximity, affinity, and other “itys” are completely irrelevant. 

But the study of human nature (and corporations are people, my friend, as are countries) demonstrates that we are anything but rational actors that solely consider our best long-term self interest.  Study after study demonstrates that as we perceive chaos in our world, we revert to a state of risk aversion by “circling our wagons”.  We trust only in the world we can see around us – that we can touch and experience, rather than trust.

In this type of environment, proximity is king.  Our experiential knowledge, and thus the things we place value in, is highly correlated to our mobility.  This internal corrective mechanism is often subconscious and can manifest itself as geographic and economic tribalism.  If I see it, touch it, work it, explain it, and have tacit knowledge of it, then I trust it, invest in it, and overvalue it, much to the detriment of things I have not directly experienced through my senses.  This largely explains why venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have a “20 minute rule” about how close prospects must be to their office in order to warrant investment.  It explains why journalists from The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a national publication, inevitably write 80% of their stories about initiatives in the New York region.  It is why ESPN’s Boston- and East Coast-centric sports media culture, which made perfect sense when the company was headquartered in Connecticut, is rapidly becoming a West Coast-centric culture, now that the company is co-located in Los Angeles.   

The subconscious neurological method is almost Cartesian in its egocentric self-aggrandizement: “I see and experience (it), therefore it is”.     

The challenge, and certainly opportunity, for a Houston-based organization is that our region is drastically undervalued, under-recognized, and underrepresented at the national level. If the logic above is sound, then this is not an intentional slight, but a byproduct of the proximal magnetism of the traditionally dominant geographic and cultural centers around the country. This magnetism acts as a self-perpetuating aggregating mechanism, where resources and attention are drawn disproportionally to a few centers of old power. In times of flux, everyone circles the wagons, intentionally or otherwise.

How then does the greater Houston region break through?  (To be continued, or maybe just deleted.)