The Rise of the Creative Class (tROTCC)

Interesting. Very interesting. I did enjoy reading this article and have visited the website for tROTCC. I consider Columbus to be my hometown even though my family moved a few times when I was younger and we now live in Findlay. Columbus was ranked 33 out of the 332! If you are interested, check out where your favorite city ranks at http://www.creativeclass.org/rankings.shtml. Enough of my ramblings. I do believe that Florida had some interesting insights. To me, it was almost like common sense. Why wouldn't creativity lead to economic growth? Florida states on page 17:

This begs the question of what accounts for the ability of some places to
attract and capture a greater quantity or quality of these flows. The answer, I
believe, lies in openness, diversity, and tolerance. Our work finds a strong
correlation between, on the one hand, places open to immigrants, artists, gays,
and socioeconomic integration, and, on the other, places that experience high
quality economic growth.

It seems to be that if a culture is open to diversity in its many forms, this would include diversity of ideas. New ideas breed new opportunities which lead to growth.

I would appreciate clarification on one of his statements. On page 8 he states that "three-quarters of the graduates identified location as more important than the availability of a job when selecting a place to live." What he doesn't state is why location was so important. Perhaps location was important because of family. Did the graduate choose to live close to his or her hometown? He does not show that location was important because of some artistic or cultural reason yet that seems to be the implication. Maybe his focus groups generated the reasons as to why location was important, but he doesn't make that clear here.

I hope that doesn't seem nitpicky, but it bothered me as I was reading the article. The book would be fascinating to read and could probably clear up the questions I have. I do not see why many of the features would not useful to many different groups. For instance, the bike paths. They are not just for old people or young people or families. Likewise, cities with cultural attractions such as museums are not just for patrons of the arts. That is one of the reasons I like Columbus. There is so much to do there for any age range.