The Smartest Places on Earth

Bol

Longlisted for the FT/McKinsey Book of the Year and the 800 CEO Read Book Prize, The Smartest Places on Earth is a remarkable journey to the rustbelts of America and northern Europe, the unlikely new hotspots of innovation, where making things smart (not cheap) is the competitive advantage that is turning globalization on its head. Antoine van Agtmael coined the term "emerging markets" and built a career and a multibillion-dollar investing firm centered on these surging economies that would, over time, supplant the West as engines of wealth and prosperity. The trend held for decades, but a few years ago van Agtmael and Alfred Bakker, a renowned European journalist, began seeing signs that the tide might be turning. For example, during a visit to an enormously successful chip company in Taiwan, the company's leaders told them that their American competitors were now eating their lunch. And Taiwan was not the only place giving them this message.Thus began a remarkable two-year journey to reassess the conventional wisdom that the United States and Europe are yesterday's story and to determine whether there something profound is happening that points the way to the creation of the next economy. In The Smartest Places on Earth, van Agtmael and Bakker present a truly hopeful and inspiring investigation into the emerging sources of a new era of competitiveness for America and Europe that are coming from unlikely places--those cities and areas once known as "rustbelts" that have, from an economic perspective, been written off. Take Akron, Ohio, whose economy for decades was dependent on industries such as tire manufacturing, a product now made cheaply elsewhere. In Akron and other such communities, a combination of forces--including visionary thinkers, government initiatives, start-ups making real products, and even big corporations--have succeeded in creating what van Agtmael and Bakker call a "brainbelt." These brainbelts depend on a collaborative work style that is unique to the societies and culture of America and Europe, since they involve levels of trust and freedom of thinking that can't be replicated elsewhere. They are producing products and technologies that are transforming industries such as vehicles and transportation, farming and food production, medical devices and health care.For several decades, American and European industry focused on cost by outsourcing production to those emerging markets that can make things cheaper. The tide has now turned toward being smart, as van Agtmael and Bakker report, and the next emerging market, may, in fact, be the West.

Bol Partner

The remarkable story of how rustbelt cities such as Akron and Albany in the United States and Eindhoven in Europe are becoming the unlikely hotspots of global innovation, where sharing brainpower and making things smarter- not cheaper- is creating a new economy that is turning globalization on its headAntoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker counter recent conventional wisdom that the American and northern European economies have lost their initiative in innovation and their competitive edge by focusing on an unexpected and hopeful trend: the emerging sources of economic strength coming from areas once known as rustbelts that had been written off as yesterday's story.In these communities, a combination of forces- visionary thinkers, local universities, regional government initiatives, start-ups, and big corporations- have created brainbelts. Based on trust, a collabourative style of working, and freedom of thinking prevalent in America and Europe, these brainbelts are producing smart products that are transforming industries by integrating IT, sensors, big data, new materials, new discoveries, and automation. From polymers to medical devices, the brainbelts have turned the tide from cheap, outsourced production to making things smart right in our own backyard. The next emerging market may, in fact, be the West.