The Creative Class Myth
Florida’s idea was a nice one: Young, innovative people move to places that are open and hip and tolerant. They, in turn, generate economic innovation. I loved this idea because, as a freelance writer, it made me important. I was poor, but somehow I made everyone else rich! It seemed to make perfect sense. Madison, by that reasoning, should have been clamoring to have me, since I was one of the mystical bearers of prosperity. …
I’m not sure what exactly I expected, but within a year or two it was clear that something wasn’t right. If Madison was such a Creative Class hotbed overflowing with independent, post-industrial workers like myself, we should have fit in. Yet our presence didn’t seem to matter to anyone, creatively or otherwise. And anyway, Madison’s economy was humming along with unemployment around four percent, while back in fun, creative Portland, it was more than twice that, at eight and a half percent. This was not how the world according to Florida was supposed to work. I started to wonder if I’d misread him. Around town I encountered a few other transplants who also found themselves scratching their heads over what the fuss had been about. Within a couple years, most of them would be gone.
Frank Bures wrote a really great essay in Thirty Two Magazine, a new publication for the Twin Cities, about the myth of the creative class—an idea pushed by urban theorist Richard Florida that a city with a strong presence of artists, gays and lesbians, and immigrants would drive economic growth. Economists agree that a healthy amount of college-educated people does help drive economic growth—and much of the creative class are college-educated—but there has not been a lot of evidence showing that cities like Washington D.C., Boston, and New York grew because creative people came there, or if creative people came there because the cities were growing.
This is all really just to say if you’re expecting to move to Portland to find a booming economy full of young, creative types, you’ll need to adjust your expectations.
Someone from Minneapolis calling Madison a giant suburb? That’s rich.
@wallrock I’m from Minneapolis and I went to grad school in Madison. Minneapolis is definitely more of a real city. But he does make the differences between the two sound a lot starker than they actually are.
@Amanda@twitter Truth. Also, I have to call bullshit on this schools thing. Madison consistently is one of the top districts in the country in graduation rates, state exams, ACT scores, etc. For minorities, too, although there are very few of them.
Young, creative, gay immigrants move to the cities where the good creative class jobs are. Their economic activity, in turn, creates more good jobs. But it’s the good jobs that attract them, not the coffee shops or whatever.
@stuffisthings Now I feel like a fool for moving to San Francisco just to drink bacon coffee.
@MuffyStJohn As long as it’s made by creative lesbian, I dunno, vegan Jews, or something, you’re probably fine. I mean, they probably wouldn’t share your coffee with you, since it has bacon in it and all, but rest assured they’re feeding the magic Economics Vortex that causes rents in your city to rise only 6-10 times faster than median income. Creativity!
@stuffisthings Well obviously I would only buy my bacon from a vegan Jew. I’m not some kind of yuppie savage.
@MuffyStJohn Well, just make sure you send your kids to Harvard and never let them eat at Red Lobster, or else they’ll never get into Bobo Paradise and will be flattened by an olive tree on steroids. Unless I’m getting my airport bestsellers muddled here…
Everyone knows Portland is just a retirement home for white kids.
!! I love ripping on Richard Florida!! There’s actually a great series of studies on the relationship between artists and the “creative class” done by a woman named Anne Markusen, debunking the whole puesdo science he uses. Ms. Markusen basically points out that Florida uses the metric of college-educated to equal “creative” but actual creatives often have a lot in common with blue collar workers and industrial land uses (sculptors and glassblowers share more similarity in workspace to buildings that would also work for jewelery plating and box manufacturing, not office space that can also hold accountants and architects).
The reality is Florida is a middle class white collar jobs booster, but indiscriminately, pretending that “creativity” is the shared characteristic of all kinds of workers (he includes lawyers in the creative class!). In reality a city that is strong has opportunities for both highly educated workers and a stable industrial/lower ed job market. Florida sells flimflam.
However this article states that there’s no proof of positive effect on the cities from arts, but that’s also wrong. Markusen also does find economic benefits to cities from having artists- there’s an art multiplier effect that is more real than the sports stadium multiplier, and Americans for the Arts also worked on a number of rigorous studies that show how arts organizations can positively affect a city’s bottom line. However, I don’t think anyone who studies the positive gains of arts for a living would argue that these can fund a whole city. You also need other sturdy sectors. Basically, a healthy city is a complex organism and people like Florida who try and reduce it down are not going to ever get it right.
Dear Billfold,
I am moving to Portland next Wednesday. You are not helping.
Love,
elizabeast
@elizabeast It’s OK, I heard someone saw a guy with a mohawk there once, which means all the nurses and middle managers in the city are actually part of the Creative Class!
No worries about Portland! I lived there for four years and you can have a super nice life there with like, half a job.