Richard Florida employs a raft of
statistics to show both the importance and character of what he calls
the "Creative Class", and this is a good thing because it shows that his
theories aren't built merely on wishful thinking. After reading his
book, I'm reasonably convinced that there are significant correlations
between a city or region's diversity, acceptance of gays, percentage of
artists, high tech businesses, number of patents granted, and
population and economic growth. Unfortunately, these connections go against the
conventional wisdom that holds corporate tax breaks and publicly-funded
stadiums to be the roots of success, so our communities make bad
decisions and end up worse off than need be. In these matters, citizens
seem to be a few steps ahead of their representatives, as seen in the
overwhelming trend of voters rejecting stadium deals. That's not to say
that the population as a whole has embraced Florida's argument that
economic success under current conditions requires acceptance of
diversity and difference, but they're closer than their politicians.
Why the disconnect between Creative Class values and those of our political system? Creative people tend to look at the current system, with all its cronyism and inefficiencies, and say "politics isn't for me". For things to improve, then, what's needed is new ways to plug creative people into political decision making. To my mind, the Dean campaign and its metamorphosis into Democracy for America is an indicator that answers are starting to be found. As Florida has pointed out, the Dean campaign didn't quite get it in time, but the level and character of creative participation was a promising first. This is, of course, a 10,000 foot summary of Florida's evidence and arguments, which I found to be consistently interesting and accessible. Recommended, and probably at your local library.
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