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Aaron Slodov makes a strong case here for building an “American Shenzhen.”
It’s one of the best arguments I’ve seen for U.S. reindustrialization.
But I think the underlying question may be slightly off.
Shenzhen didn’t win because of density.
It won because of metabolic rate — the speed at which an ecosystem converts ideas into deployable products.
Density accelerates metabolism.
But it’s not the only way to do it.
The next industrial system may look less like a city and more like a distributed organism:
• fractal manufacturing networks • autonomous logistics corridors • model-defined production • zonal governance for safe deployment
Not a cluster.
A learning system.
That’s the idea behind my new essay: “Don’t Build American Shenzhen.”
Michael Spencer Michael Woudenberg Maxim Raginsky Howard Yu Lesley Gao Packy McCormick Mario Gabriele Joel Johnson
