Whether formal or informal, these businesses lack the infrastructure, equipment, access to materials and markets which any firm of any size anywhere needs to expand— and create higher quality jobs. The net result is low employment generation in the Colombian capital as a whole, the bulk being in the informal sector. This was confirmed by findings of UN-Habitat’s City Prosperity Initiative recently implemented in 23 Colombian cities.39 Technical assistance and strategic, temporary subsidies would enable smaller firms to overcome these obstacles, leveraging them into higher efficiency and breaking the current cycle of low productivity: this is an effective policy to consider. As noted earlier, over 90 per cent of New York businesses employ fewer than 20 staff; but since 2001, 67 per cent of new firms employ fewer than five. High-end New York firms are now mostly located in Brooklyn where fixed costs are lower than in Manhattan, turning New York into “the second Silicon Valley” of the US.