The new industries are brainy industries and so-called knowledge workers tend to like to be near other people who are the same. Think of the City of Hollywood. People cluster. This means you have winning regions, such as London and Cambridge, and losing regions. The people who want to be top lawyers in Sunderland are hoovered up by London.

Davis is describing the modern economy’s tendency toward geographic concentration: high-value “brainy” work thrives on proximity, dense networks, and shared labor markets. Knowledge workers often prefer places where peers, opportunities, and cultural amenities are abundant, creating self-reinforcing clusters (his Hollywood example). The result is a widening gap between “winning” regions that attract talent and investment (e.g., London/Cambridge) and “losing” regions that struggle to retain ambitious people. His image of Sunderland’s would-be top lawyers being “hoovered up” by London underscores how national labor markets can drain smaller cities of elite human capital, entrenching regional inequality.