We all know about California’s Silicon Valley. A bunch of rockstar tech entrepreneurs who are changing the world through their innovations.
Throughout human history, there have been pockets in time and specific places that make a real impact on the way we live. Ancient Athens was home to geniuses like Plato and Socrates, whose contributions to philosophy changed the way the world thought. The Renaissance in Italy and Northern Europe created some of the greatest artists and innovators of all time.
So what is it about those places that gave rise to the genius that took hold? Former NPR correspondent Eric Weiner investigates that issue in his new book, The Geography of Genius. Many believe that people are either born geniuses, or become geniuses through hard work. But Weiner says that part of a person’s ability to become a genius is in the soil where they flourish.
“I’m looking at the actual place,” says Weiner. “Not just, ya know, what your family life was like growing up, although that’s part of it. But what’s the city like, and it almost is the city that produces this genius.”
It seems that many things contribute to a city’s ability to produce geniuses, including its proximity to nature. Cities that incorporate a natural environment create more geniuses. Walking also seems to contribute to a person’s genius.
“It’s a bit of a mystery, but there is something about the act of simply putting one foot in front of the other that is conducive to creative thinking,” says Weiner. “I think it has partly has to do with defocusing your attention. That you are getting out of your head, if you will, and allowing these ideas that you’ve been struggling with to marinate on a more subconscious level.”
So why don’t we continue to see geniuses coming from cities like Athens or Florence, where they once prospered? Some of these cities suffer from what Weiner calls “golden age hangover.”
“The past can inspire, but it can also, it can intimidate,” says Weiner.