Cities Accelerate Social Life

In New York City, wages follow a surprising pattern - they increase in a super linear way as cities grow larger. This means that as cities double in size, wages increase by about 15-16%. This pattern has been observed since 1969 and is consistent over time. Interestingly, this super linear pattern is unique to economics and is not found in biology. This finding implies that as people earn more money, they also spend more and life becomes faster. This pattern has been observed in other data related to crime and behavior, highlighting the accelerating social life as captured by a simple mathematical signature.