Category: Creative Class

Is Richard Florida, author (“The Rise of the Creative Class”), professor and guru of the Creative Class philosophy, just another Harold Hill selling bohemian coffee shops and brew pubs, instead of band instruments to gullible townspeople?

An article in the American Prospect, “The Ruse of the Creative Class,” by Washington Post writer Alec MacGillis inches up to that conclusion – without completely landing it. But MacGillis point to the huge number of cities such as Elmira, N.Y., and Cleveland, that embraced Florida’s theories – some of them paying rather a lot of money to his consulting firm – but haven’t yet found creative class nirvana.

MacGillis writes, “… by some measures, yuppie idylls like San Francisco and Boston have lagged behind unhip, low-tax bastions like Houston and Charlotte, North Carolina.”

Ouch! Unhip? Us? (And I know plenty of people are yelping, “low-tax”??!!!)

The lengthy article is nuanced and points out many complexities, and quotes Florida at length answering his critics. I recommend reading it – before you come to any knee-jerk decision on whether you do or don’t agree with it, or with Florida.

That said, my take on Florida’s theories goes roughly like this: He pinpoints something that has been important in some cities, but there’s no silver bullet that will solve what ails many cities. If a city attracts more artists and creative types, it generally prospers. But simply declaring one’s city to be “creative” doesn’t make it so, nor does paying a consultant to come tell you you should be creative. (Charlotte tried that a while back. I don’t think we’re any more or less creative than we would have been. We’re bigger now, so we have higher numbers of “creatives” but I’m pretty sure that was a result of growth, not any study for which anyone got paid.) Cities are organic and develop in organic ways that are hard to manage and predict.

Social theorist Richard Florida has both champions and skeptics. Joel Kotkin, for instance, who spoke in Charlotte in October at the Partners for Livable Communities conference, pooh-poohs Florida’s theories.

But one big national foundation is putting money into figuring out how to apply Florida’s theories to Charlotte.We’re one of three cities starting a Knight Creative Communities Initiative. Others are Tallahassee, Fla., and Duluth, Minn.

Florida, in his bestseller, “The Rise of the Creative Class,” uses data to show that cities that prosper (at least in the measures he sets) also happen to be attractive to what he calls the creative class. The creative class are young, well-educated and work in jobs that require creativity. Cities that attract them, Florida says, also exhibit tolerance for immigrants, newcomers, artists and gays.

Note, he doesn’t say the gay people, per se, are the creative class. The point is that the civic soil that promotes tolerance also seems to be a fertile habitat for the creative class – and for economic prosperity. The Creative Communities Initiative is being launched by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in partnership with seven major Charlotte-area groups as well as Richard Florida. It’s seeking 30 volunteers, “community catalysts.”

Think you’re a creative class community catalyst? To apply, visit UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute web site.

Other community partners are: the Arts & Science Council, Central Piedmont Community College, the Charlotte Chamber, the Charlotte Regional Partnership, Foundation for the Carolinas and The Lee Institute.

What’s the Knight Foundation and how does it relate to the formerly Knight Ridder-owned Charlotte Observer? The foundation is completely separate from the paper, though its money originally came from the family that founded the “Knight” part of Knight Ridder. Here’s some info: “The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers (one of which is Charlotte).”