The rise and fall of an economic epoch is measured by employment. The convergence of agriculture and manufacturing don't concern production. When less people are needed to produce more goods, the economy has peaked. The workforce needs retraining. In his book "The New Geography of Jobs", Enrico Moretti argues that the Innovation Economy is still diverging. Regional job growth is dependent on creative industries such as Apple:
Apple, Moretti says, employs 13,000 directly in Cupertino but has spurred 70,000 indirect jobs in the region. Two-thirds of American jobs are in the local service sector, he writes, and “the almost magical economics of job creation” are that “for each new high-tech job in a city, five additional jobs are ultimately created outside of the high-tech sector in that city, both in skilled occupations (lawyers, teachers, nurses) and in unskilled ones (waiters, hairdressers, carpenters).” What’s more, innovation “has a disproportionate effect on the economy of American communities. Most sectors have a multiplier effect, but the innovation sector has the largest multiplier of all: about three times larger than that of manufacturing.”
To read the original article: Burgh Diaspora - Economic Development From Geographic Mobility
