I read an article “The Curse of the Creative Class” by Steven Malanga that provides a counter argument to Richard Florida’s popular book “Rise of the Creative Class”. In response to Florida’s books, many cities have tried to implement trendy alterations to their city to attract this Creative Class that was said to have so much influence over a city’s economy. Providence, Rhode Island, for example, “local economic-development officials are urging a campaign to make the city the nation’s capital of independent rock music.” Other cities are spending millions to build new bike paths and parks to attract this hip, young group of tech savvy employees.

Malanga brings up some very good points on why this is a bad use of money. Florida made some leaps in logic when writing his book, assuming that these cities with high populations of Creative Class had somehow attracted these particular people with amenities the city already had. In reality, much of the creative class is not entrepreneurs and moved to cities because of job offers in existing businesses.

Attention was especially paid to Austin and its appeal, “Austin, already one of the winners in Florida’s world, is working hard to keep its edge. The city sets aside taxes on hotel rooms and car rentals to support local artists. A city-council economic-development subcommittee has adopted the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” to emphasize its belief that support for offbeat culture is essential to the city’s economic future. One defining assertion of that conviction, as Florida approvingly reports, is that Austin has erected—right smack in the midst of its downtown jogging trail—a bronze statue honoring not Sam Houston or Jim Bowie, but rock guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan.”

Unfortunately, it takes the potential of profit to motivate our cities to invest money in their public spaces. Money should be going equally to the citizens in need instead of all towards meager attempts to attract a trendy population. I do appreciate that, because of Florida, cities now realize the potential that parks, bike lanes, live music, and public art have in creating a thriving city.

Article:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_1_the_curse.html