What The Future Of Work Means For Cities

NOTE: This is an excerpt of Planet Money's newsletter. You can sign up here. Two weeks ago, MIT's David Autor gave the prestigious Richard T. Ely lecture at the annual meeting of American economists in Atlanta. Introduced by the former chair of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke as a "first-class thinker" who was doing "path-breaking" work on the central economic issues of automation, globalization, and inequality, Autor strolled up to the microphone with a big smile. His talk was about the past and future of work, and he focused especially on cities.