ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the very troubling "great American job shortage." It describes the piece's protagonists: the Gazelles. The relative roles of large and small firms are of only modest importance, because most jobs are created by firms that are neither large nor small. In 1993, the average size of a Gazelle firm was 61 employees. Overall, Gazelles employ roughly 20 million Americans. Gazelles are not indifferent regarding where they locate. Cognetics, an economics research firm, has found that Gazelles seek places where skilled workforces want to live and where managers have easy home-to-work commutes. Within cities, Gazelles are, in most cases, moving as far away from the centers as they can get and still be near airports, highways, and universities—to the places Joel Garreau had labeled "edge cities." In the process, they are leaving behind the Americans most in need of employment.
