No condescension. Just an observation about the simple fact that innovation isn't just a matter of individual creativity, it also requires an environment that encourages it and, most importantly, provides the support services and structures necessary to make innovative ideas into reality. The lone inventor is a dying breed, and product development today requires teams of people. Cities provide more people to interact with in general, and thus a greater statistical likelihood of finding people who can contribute to bringing a good idea to market.
I think you know this, judging by your comments about people who move from the country to the city. You know as well as I do that the historical pattern has always been that ambitious and/or creative people moved into the cities, long before Republicans started their culture war. "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm..." is ancient folk-wisdom, and common sense.
It's said that a person needs both roots and wings. A lot of people leave small towns for bigger things, but what they've learned where they were raised serves them well in later years.
That's not a bad general principle, and more power to people who try to hang on to small town values in the big city. Those values will be modified by the reality of life in the city, which has been my point all along. How could it be any other way? As you say, there's a steady circulation of people between city and country--they're not on different planets--and thus small town values are tested against the reality of the city all the time, and those that are functional survive, those that don't disappear. It's evolution in action: Customs and values have to confer an advantage in a given environment or they're weeded out. Small town values survive in the city to the exact extent that they work, and no more. Imposing those values by government fiat will be disastrous.
Why am I even having to argue with a Republican against government intrusion in our lives? Oh yeah, that's right, because Republicans are fighting a culture war and trying to impose their values on the entire country. Doesn't the cognitive dissonance between rhetoric about limited government and the reality of Republican social ambitions ever get to you?