See the rest of the article here (HT:MC).

1. Do a significant volume of work, even if it doesn't pay.
2. Creative excellence takes time.
3. Give yourself the space and time to move from mediocre work to meet your higher tastes.

Finally finished reading Richard Florida's Who's Your City? A pretty interesting read about how people choose where they live and how it affects their happiness and career opportunities.

The first part of the book takes a global view of how people cluster in about a couple dozen mega-regions around the world.  Cities' populations and economic power are represented by these spikes.  The maps show that the world is very "spiky world."  These spikes represent where the most of the people of the world live.  Other maps show where are economic growth is.  One map shows where the top scientists and patents in the world are.  From these maps, you get the sense that the wealth of people, money, and knowledge is concentrated in a select number of world mega-regions.  The Greater Tokyo megaregion is the world's largest.  The Boston-NY-Washington, D.C. region is probably the largest in North America.  Then Amsterdam-Brussels-Antwerp is the biggest region in Europe.

The second part of the book focuses in on U.S. data to see how the human race has made the major migration from rural regions to urban regions.  Major urban regions are attracting and, in fact, creating new kinds of jobs that Florida classifies as the Creative Economy.  The Creative Economy encompasses entrepreneurialship, artisans, high-tech jobs, and brokerage clerks amongst many other occupations.  All of these occupations are centred within a certain number of city-regions within the United States.  For example, he cites 75% of all entertainers in the US work in Los Angeles or that half of all the fashion designers in the US work in New York.  He says that these city-regions are specializing in certain occupations.  Along with these jobs come wealth.  This wealth is increasingly concentrated in certain regions of the US. The Creative Class is mobile and will move to where there are the best opportunities for work and play.

The third part is entitled the Geography of Happiness.  Florida compares the choice of where we live to what jobs we take and who we will spend the rest of our lives with.  He says we spend a lot of time weighing our decisions about career and marriage, but we don't spend much time on picking where we live.  We may move to towns where the job market is good, but we are not enthralled with the city where our job is.  Each city has its own vibe and feel.  A person who likes the laid-back and sustainable-minded lifestyle of the Pacific Northwest may not like the urban scene of New York City.  Different personalities tend to gravitate towards different cities.  A city's personality plays an important role in how the mobile Creative Class move about the US.

The last part of the book focuses on where people in the US live now.  He divides the population into different age categories based on different times in their life.  He talks about three big moves: when we graduate from college, when we have children, and when the kids move out.  These are key milestones in people's lives and it often affects their decision on where to live.  When someone graduates, they look for affordable housing, good career opportunities, and cities where they can find a potential life partner.  When a couple has children, they will look for child-friendly neighbourhoods, good schools, and good family amenities.  When children move out, a couple may seek out to live close to their adult children or for opportunities to down-size, but to still be close to great urban activities.

The last chapter is devoted to placing yourself in a city of your choice and Florida give 11 steps on how to find the right place to live.  Sort of 'how do you' section, but without the details.  They are only questions and steps to guide one's decision.

Overall, Who's Your City? is a fascinating book on how our world, society, and economy works as a function of place.  More and more people are attracted to larger urban regions for a variety of reasons.  I would have liked more of an international perspective instead of just focusing on stats from the United States.  The statistics are very heavy in American content.  We can draw some parallels to Canadian cities.  In fact, Florida does mention Toronto a few times throughout the book because he is now living and working there.  According to Florida's blog, he is working on a Canadian edition of his book and is canvassing people for stories related to his ideas of place, economy, and happiness.

Since we now live in a global village where people constantly move overseas to pursue new careers and lifestyles, it would be interesting to have more focus on which mega-regions internationally are attracting Florida's Creative Class.  Florida does mention how many of his students at the University of Toronto plan on moving back to their home countries, but he does not dig deeper into the patterns of migration to other countries and mega-regions outside of the US. In Vancouver and Toronto, for example, we had a large influx of Hong Kong immigrants in the late 80's and early 90's.  However, a large number of them have moved back to Hong Kong to pursue careers there.  Even children of these immigrants who studied in Canada decide to pursue opportunities in Asia.  I've heard many cite more exciting career opportunities in Asia.  Some say they prefer the vibrant non-stop pace of life in Asia with its huge variety of entertainment, shopping, and dining.  A few families moved back because they felt Western education focused too much on individuality and they wanted to have their children grow up with Asian values of discipline and respect.  These issues are definitely not addressed in Who's Your City?.

What makes people happy?:

• A job they love
• Social connections and relationships
• A good place to live 

However, the headliner for my interest in this year's Congress was Richard Florida.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to his actual talk.  Work would enable me to be there.  However, I went to the follow-up panel discussion.

At the beginning of the discussion, they prepped the audience with a few videos from Florida's Creative Class Group website.  The videos are found at the bottom of his video page.

Indeed, as suspected, Richard Florida does build upon some of Jane Jacob`s ideas of how a group of cities cluster together to create wealth.  That a cluster of cities, as in Renaissance Italy, can come together and be a creative force in the economy, in the arts, and the sciences.  Some very interesting ideas if you are interested in this kind of stuff.

He`s also promoting his new book, Who`s Your City.  I managed to get a half price copy at the Congress...hehe.  Still reading through it.

When I get a chance, I`ll summarize part of the book and also talk about the discussion panel that I was able to attend.  Still sifting through my notes.

Times have changed. Sure, there are still plenty of cubicles but in many cities they are steadily being replaced by coffee shops. Unlike the stifling effects of the cubicle, coffee shops and cafes can stimulate creativity . Caffeine, music, good food, other creative people, open-air workspace, people and culture swirling all around you. The new office is the mobile office, a land of open-air, ever alternating cubicles where creativity teems with the steam of each cappuccino. Richard Florida has argued for a next wave of work, seeing creativity, not knowledge, as new economic driver. He defines creativity as "the creation of useful new forms out of that knowledge," and writes "in my formulation, 'knowledge' and 'information' are the tools and materials of creativity.

Are we in a creative age? Are cafes the new cubicles? If so, have we reached vocational utopia which all, non-creative work must only aspire to? Or is there a dark side to the new office, a danger in a creative-driven economy? One thing is for sure, firms and office managers are sending freelancers and employees to the cafes with a laugh. Who pays for the expenses? Coffee, internet, space, parking, food, air conditioning, drinks, power? A creative way to make a buck!

See Nikil Saval, "Birth of the Office," n+1; Richard Florida, Rise of the Creative Class.

In this post:

• The Decision About Place
• Impacts of Migration
• Meeting Opportunity
• Cities Are People Too, They Are Alive
• Impacts to Small Businesses
• What Do We Need To Do?
• Consequences of Success (The Balance of the Whole)

The Decision About Place

Florida offers the premise that most people do not put nearly the same amount of effort in choosing where they want to live as they do in choosing a spouse and choosing a career, but that location seems to be more predictive of our all-round personal happiness. As he talked about the importance of place and the magnitude of choice, I thought back to a previous lecture I attended with Thomas Friedman, who argued that the world is flat – that globalization was making the world effectively smaller.

Impacts of Migration

Florida agrees with Friedman’s premise, but suggests that by nature of having a worldwide competition pool, the economic growth is increasing concentrated in certain mega-regions. He refers to these as “superstar cities.” Smaller cities and towns are starting to feel the effects of brain drain much like international countries did when their youth went to the US for business school and stayed in the states. Now, those international students come here for business school and are seeing opportunities around the world – not just The States – and it’s equalizing the playing field (but not equally across the playing field). He cite that roughly 40 million people make a “big move” each year and that the areas where we live are also affected by our increasingly mobile culture.

Meeting Opportunity

I can vouch for this, I’ve moved over 20 times in my life, all for education or economic opportunities and in doing so, I gave up “being rooted.” Sometimes, that is what you have to do to experience and enjoy an opportunity – you have to go after it. He argues that (on average) those who choose to stay rooted in their communities due to friends, family or other choices, do so at the risk of giving up such opportunities. Most people agree that personality types tend to cluster—type A to urban areas, type B to rural. Florida argues there are three types of people now: those that can move, those that are rooted in the communities and those that are stuck (want to move, but financially cannot). The “stuck” are part of the ever-widening class gap and digital divide issue we are facing, and it is growing faster than ever before. But technology and education alone cannot power the economy – cities do.

Cities Are People Too, They Are Alive

Florida made the point that cities are living organisms, with a metabolism. They shrink and grow as opportunities arise. Some continue to grow and grow – those that can sustain such uber-growth (those with high metabolisms, like New York, Hong Kong, Beijing) have found a way to not collapse under the pressure. However they also have a very polarizing class system. While those with the latest skills are contributing to that growth enjoy a nice life, there are increasing amounts of people living in substandard conditions.   This affects trends. Take real estate. Housing priorities change as we age (from starter homes to family-friendly suburbs to empty nests and finally retirement centers).   

“…the world is composed of innovative peaks and valleys. The leaders are the metropolitan regions around Tokyo, Seoul, New York, and San Francisco. Boston, Seattle, Austin, Toronto, Vancouver, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Helsinki, Osaka, Seoul, Taipei and Sydney stand out.” “There are still at most two dozen places worldwide that generate significant innovation. These regions have ecosystems of leading-edge universities, high-powered companies, flexible labor markets, and venture capital that are attuned to the demands of commercial innovation—and there aren’t many of them.”

“The global system of cities and regions is going through the same kind of consolidation and restructuring that reshaped global industries like steel and autos and electronics around a smaller number of larger and more efficient players worldwide. Smaller cities and regions may be particularly hit hard, as both global and domestic mega regions up the ante, accelerating their rates of innovation while drawing more top talent. The Clevelands and the Pittsburghs will find themselves increasingly squeezed between twin pincers as to business functions gravitate to larger regions like Chicago, while production shifts to centers like Shanghai.”

Impacts to Small Businesses

One last point on this topic…The Shanghai Daily features some Q&A with two leading sociologists of world cities, Saskia Sassen and Chen Xiangming. Here’s Sassen on the contradictions of global cities.

My research suggests that ultimately cities are better off being dynamic (and hence global cities) but they do need political and civic leadership to balance out the extreme outcomes that markets left to themselves can produce.  European cities are much better than US cities. New York, the ultimate market town, has the highest share of very rich people and very powerful firms in the US and the highest share (over 20 percent) of officially counted poor … and, according to the most recent count, over 100,000 homeless. That shows something about matters left to markets.

Global cities are two-edged swords. They bring economic dynamics - and that means jobs, life on the streets at night, vibrant restaurants, and so on.  But they do create 20 percent of the population which is extremely prosperous and a risk that they will take over key areas of the city with luxury office buildings, luxury housing and consumption spaces. This displaces smaller shopkeepers, the old modest middle classes. They lose. More on this article…

What Do We Need To Do?

In a previous post, I had asked the question of Social Entrepreneurism being a fad. Americans can be so trendy sometimes and when it comes to conscious buying and living, I hope that this greater good we are supporting by developing sustainable businesses, working toward better business practices and investing in our communities isn’t simply a flash in the pan. The Divide (both here and abroad) needs to be served in some way, my argument is that sustainable business or social entrepreneurism is a “movement” in that direction. We can argue that the Darwinian aspects of a free market economy (let the successful thrive and the weak go out of business) are good and should be allowed to follow their course, but we have to consider the big picture even for the long term viability of those who are successful today. Consider the masses who have suffered through white collar layoffs and not had the means to go through job retraining, they are suffering on a small scale what small cities and towns are going through now –they are being left behind and will eventually tax the system. Social entrepreneurism is a “preventative medicine” for this inevitable condition. Triple bottom lines serve the whole.

Consequences of Success (The Balance of the Whole)

All this made me wonder about the climate of the small business, their much needed function and their place in society. Something to consider when driving past unrecognizable strip malls and some suburbs with disorientingly similar cross streets - what is the impact of that kind of town planning, where is the money being spent in these communities going? To shareholders, or to local services? Small businesses are necessary to our economic ecosystem, help fill in the niches large companies leave and provide an alternative option in a free market.

If the economic centers are going to be increasingly concentrated, and an increasing number of people are “stuck”, we will have to face the question of how to raise society as a whole. How does this affect “The (political and economic) Center of the US, and what sorts of support is needed to help small businesses succeed to benefit their immediate communities?

I’ve a few questions for all of you out there:

• What market are you in now (local, nationwide or international)? If you are local, what is stopping you from expanding to other “like” markets?
• If you were to move, could you take your business with you? Was this a consideration for you when you developed your business plan?
•  Was the community benefit a conscious effort for you to include in your business model or a natural by-product of your business plan?

Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences website

As I had mentioned in previous post, the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences is having their national congress in town at the various UBC campuses around town. I want to highlight the one I'm really interested in (but which I unfortunately will miss).

12:15 TO 13:20, WOODWARD (IRC), THEATRE 2

Research in Society: Richard Florida “Who's Your City?”

Richard Florida is one of the world’s leading public intellectuals on economic competitiveness, demographic trends, and cultural and technological innovation. Currently Professor of Business and Creativity at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Florida has held professorships at George Mason University and Carnegie Mellon University and taught as a visiting professor at Harvard and MIT. He is a former senior scientist with the Gallup Organization. Florida earned his Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Columbia University. Through his work, he provides unique, data-driven insight into the social, economic and demographic factors that drive the 21st-century world economy.

He is more of an economist and deals mainly with demographics and statistical trends, but it would be interesting to see what he has to say about cities in general. An excerpt from Randy Shore's Vancouver Sun article that I had referenced before shows that Richard Florida has some similar ideas to Jane Jacobs.

Florida is launching a book called Who's Your City? in which he explores the idea that cities, rather than nations, are the drivers of the new knowledge-based economy. Florida says that choosing where to live is as important to our lives, our happiness and fulfilment as choosing a job or a mate.

Florida's view outline above is very similar to what Jane Jacobs has written before in two of her books: The Economy of Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations. I've only had the opportunity to read the latter. So Florida may be building upon part of Jacobs previous arguments in her books.

There is a follow up lecture in the evening at UBC Robson Square:

18:00 TO 20:00, HSBC HALL, ROBSON SQUARE CAMPUS

“The Role of Culture in the Global Urban Economy”

In a global economy where the MFA is the new MBA, this panel considers Richard Florida’s notion of the creative class and what it will mean for the role of culture in our cities. The panel will include academics, authors, gallerists, artists, and city representatives; copies of Florida’s latest book, Who’s Your City?, will be available at special Congress price; presented in conjunction with UBC Alumni Affairs.

Actually, it's more of a discussion than a lecture that will build upon some of the ideas that Florida will have presented earlier in the day. This is the lecture that is outside of my working hours and which I'll be able to attend. I just wish I had taken the day off, but it's too late now.

If anyone is interested in attending these lectures, you can purchase a Community Participant Day Pass at the Student Union Building (SUB) at UBC. It's $15 and gives you access to a select number of lectures and displays on campus.

Florida's chain of argument goes as follows: "The truly big changes of our time are social, not technological." The social changes revolve around an increasingly important group of people, called "the creative class." This includes occupations that encompass science and engineering, computers and their programs, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment. In short, it embraces anyone who works creatively, and is paid to create, rather than to perform a task. It is this category of people who are driving our current economic growth. Within this group is a "super-creative" core of people who are the inventors, the thinkers, the scientists, the entrepreneurs, who create exciting new ideas, new products, and new industries. The creative class as a whole earns more than the other classes, and they tend to be more heteroclitic in dress, behavior and lifestyle.

Furthermore, creative people are often quite fastidious. They prefer to live in places that tolerate diversity in lifestyles, where troublemakers, weirdos, eccentrics, and deviants feel perfectly at home. Florida has evidence to show that cities preferred by the creative class, are coincidentally the same cities that harbor a higher proportion of Bohemians, and have a higher rate of gay marriages.

Whereas in the past, workers move to places where jobs are located, in the age of information technology, jobs move to places where requisite employees can be found. Florida cites Lycos, an internet company, that started in Pittsburgh, but moved to Boston when it discovered that they could more readily recruit programmers and other creative people there. In other words, the job mountain moves to Mohammed.

Based on these observations, Florida posits that in order to attract the creative industries, cities have to try to attract creative people. What the latter want is a more tolerant society, low entry barriers, with friendly, easily accessible outdoor activities such as cycling, jogging, and night cafes and eateries.

Florida asserts that cities which are more liberal tend to have more creative industries and people. This has led him to postulate a causal relationship between the two. Cool, trendy places attract creative types. Therefore, he recommends that governments or local authorities should not "waste" money on expensive prestige projects like sports stadiums or huge concert halls, because they do not attract young creative people. Instead, authorities may find it more beneficial to "throw" money at projects that will attract the creative class. This includes supporting community arts, building jogging and cycling tracks, creating places like cafes, where casual nightlife can occur.

Florida's thesis is very bold and seductive. It challenges our current orthodoxy. In classical thinking, all things being equal, people migrate primarily to places where they can find jobs, rather than to a liberal city with only a blind faith that they will find employment. Jobs exist because highly creative people built them. It is this elite group that are the strongest magnets pulling other creative people to them, rather than to the city per se. Workers are drawn to companies started by creative giants, like Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and so on. If the companies they started were situated in an inhospitable place, people would nonetheless still throng to them, probably.

However, Florida challenges all this. Wouldn't it be nice that if you can transform a hitherto stuffy conservative place into a kinky liberal enclave, attract a whole bunch of creative people who will create new products, new industries, and voila you have a thriving city.

Is it really so simple? Doesn't it sound too good to be true? Does it work for all cities in the world?

Before I express my qualms about Florida's theories, let me disclose that fundamentally I'm sold by his thesis. I consider myself part of the creative class, and his prescriptions are tantalizingly alluring. I accept at face value his idea of a creative class, which he claims amounts to 30% of our population. The numbers are staggering. Nevertheless, this is quite an innovative way of classifying people involved in the creative and thinking industries. I see no point quibbling about whether or not it is a legitimate class, who belongs to it, and how many people there are. Florida is an academic, and he has a solid body of evidence to back up his claims.

His second assertion is that creative industries are driving our modern economy. You don't have to be a genius to realize that innovation is a major driving force in our new economy. We watch new shows, we wear new fashions, we upgrade our computers or handphones, we buy new gadgets, we benefit from advances in medical and other technologies. The list of new ideas and products is almost infinite. You may even have noted that innovators tend to cluster in certain cities or centers. University towns like Harvard, Cambridge, Stanford, and geographic locations like Silicon Valley and Hollywood, or large companies like Apple, Sony, or Ikea are places that regularly produce exciting new ideas and products. It has almost become a truism that the more innovative a company, institution or country, the greater its competitive advantage.

My reservations in accepting his theory wholesale arise from a few personal observations. Unfortunately I do not have the research data to back up my rather anecdotal evidence. Still, I have this gut feeling that Florida's thesis may need further refinement.

The first observation concerns two thriving creative industries, sited in two cities that are quite different from San Francisco or Austin, Texas, examples used by Florida as liberal cities that attract gays and Bohemians. The two cities are Helsinki and Seoul. Nokia is one of the largest and profitable companies in Finland, churning out a stream of innovative cellular phones. I am told that some foreign workers who have transferred to the Nokia headquarters, complain that Helsinki is an inhospitable city with relatively little arts and culture, and the favorite night life seems to be drinking in the pubs. The same applies to Seoul, which is perhaps only marginally more diverse than Helsinki. Seoul is certainly not known for its gay, Bohemian, or liberal lifestyle. Once again, foreigners living there find it a difficult city to like. Yet companies like Samsung manage to attract a very creative workforce. Its electronics products are challenging well-established firms like Sony.

It did occur to me whether there was a subculture within Nokia or Samsung that provided an enclave for socializing and letting one's hair down. But I am informed that the answer is "no." Therefore these remarks made me wonder if Florida's hypotheses were applicable globally. I'm the first to admit that the evidence I provide is both anecdotal and totally subjective. But on the other hand, it does not necessarily invalidate it. [Helsinki is ranked 16, and Seoul ranked 61, as best cities in the world for expatriates to live in for 2002.]

The next observation comes from Singapore. The government is aggressively trying to convert this country into a powerhouse in biotechnology, information and communications. It is spending billions of dollars building a new center which will be a city within a city, with up-to-the-minute technologically advanced laboratories, transportation, shops, theaters, and housing. It is headhunting the world's top researchers in these areas, luring them to Singapore. Despite the fact that Singapore is an illiberal conservative city, largely intolerant of deviant behavior, with an extremely small Bohemian population, it seems to be succeeding in creating active research centers. Does Singapore defy Florida's postulates? The answer may be the same as that for the next city.

Las Vegas, a city known for its casinos and service industry, is rapidly growing both its economy and population. It has been cited as an exception to Florida's rule. However, I think that gambling puts a whole new spin into the equation. As shown in Singapore, one can spend one's way into generating economic growth. Las Vegas is transforming into a family holiday resort and entertainment center, largely because of the revenues generated by the casinos.

This leads me to the final and perhaps most fundamental question. Which came first? The liberal cities tolerating a diverse lifestyle, or the creative persons, who then catalyze the city into a more liberal and diverse environment? Is the thriving city a chicken giving birth to the creative class, or is it the egg born out of the creative class? This question cannot be dismissed out of hand, because there is an unspoken assumption in Florida's recommendations that the cause and effect is unidirectional, namely liberal cities have a gravitational pull for creative types.

Judging by my observations of Helsinki and Seoul, it appears that the city may not be that important in a creative worker's choice, although this can be debated. Creative people will go wherever the jobs are. From the experience of Las Vegas and Singapore, it seems that creative people will go to where the money is.

In the final analysis, while I think Florida may still basically correct when applied to places like Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Austin, Texas. However, I think his theories, as they now stand, are not universal, and do not apply across the board or across international borders. There are exceptions to his thesis, and more research needs to be undertaken to determine what additional factors repel or attract the creative class.

Florida's book is extremely well written, his theories are tightly argued, and backed up with a wealth of research data. It is mandatory reading for those interested in creativity, and in city development.

A group of campus entrepreneurs that we don't talk about very frequently are those whose product or services comes from the sector we traditionally call arts and culture. Much of my work with Richard Florida analyzes the intersection of artistic talent/institutions and sustainable economic growth.

Campuses have long been a place where artistic endeavors flourish and often lead the rest of society and the economy. From bands and fashion to food and computer design, campuses are a hotbed of innovation and activity.

I started thinking about this the other day while spending time with my brother in law, Zach. When he was at the University of Wisconsin Madison he founded a record label named Halftooth Records. He spent four years on the business and eventually sold his shares and moved to other pursuits. Here is an old school article from The Badger Herald on Zach, his partner, and their label.

Yet since the 2001 inception of the rising star label Halftooth Records, founding producers David Schrager and Zach Gordon have been attacking them all. From their first encounter in Madison, the record company was an inevitable endeavor. Gordon brought an enthusiasm for a broad range of musical genres and a concern with the current trajectory of the specific hip-hop culture. Schrager was industry-savvy from interning with the likes of Cornerstone Productions and working as a college representative with The Fader magazine.

The culmination of their abilities as producers is first demonstrated in the showcase album You Don’t Know the Half.

Do artists on campus traditionally view their craft as a business? Do they write business plans and marketing plans or raise capital?

Goldfinger's Trellick Tower, London, and Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse, Marseille.

Ian Fleming hated Modernist architecture so much that he named a Bond villain after Ernö Goldfinger, the Hungarian architect responsible for high-rise residential blocks like London's brutalist Trellick Tower. London's new mayor, Conservative Boris Johnson, seems to share Fleming's disdain. He's intent on reversing his predecessor Ken Livingstone's emphasis on superdense living. Red Ken -- whose support came in large part from inner urban areas -- encouraged higher buildings on ecological grounds; they're far more efficient than horizontal sprawl. Blue Boris, whose political base is in the suburbs, will lay the emphasis, instead, on one-family private houses, gardens and green space.

So much for the politics -- and ethics -- of superdense urban residential blocks. But what about the aesthetics? Is high-rise living going out of fashion or does superdense still have super-ness?

Ken Oyama's new book and Tokyo exhibition celebrating "danchi" apartment blocks.

A new book and exhibition in Tokyo suggests that in Japan -- home of some of the world's densest apartment buildings -- the cool of superdense buildings is soaring. Ken Oyama runs a blandly-named Web site, The Housing and Urban Development Corporation. Tokyo's Ikejiri Institute of Design is about to open The Great Housing Complex Exhibition, a show of his lavish, fully-frontal photographs of Japanese "danchi" (apartment) blocks. He also has a book out, zippily titled Apartment Building Research.

Cornelius Mangold's pack of cards with images of Berlin "plattenbauten" socialist-era housing.

To some, they may look like big grids of concrete, but Oyama likes to compare his apartment blocks to actresses or schoolgirls wearing lipstick. His work reminds me of Cornelius Mangold's pack of cards collecting images of Berlin "plattenbauten," the socialist-era apartment blocks ringing the city's eastern sectors.

Superdense living may not be conventionally beautiful, but it does seem to appeal to creative types. Richard Florida found one possible reason why. In a research paper entitled Urban Density, Creativity and Innovation, Florida and his team found a positive relationship between urban density and the number of new patents filed. Density, he concluded, is a key component of innovation. Maybe someone should tell London's new mayor.

Read previous columns by The Post-Materialist in our archive.

So Paul Graham suggested that a place that has the right humidity for starups to condense is a place where there are smart people and rich people. And of course, to make sure they want to live there, the place must be 'nice;' in other words: good food, nice weather, nice infrastructure, etc.

How about Finland, the top of the list of Richard Florida's creative index or Pier Abetti's competitive country index? It seems so promising when one measures the country's performance from the grades of students or the amount of top engineers being graduated. But from my personal experience, these numbers don't say much about innovation.

Innovation may take knowledge and skills, but it also takes ambition. Finnish university students study for free their entire life. Who cares if they take seven years to graduate. Along the way they can work in the university's research group, go and sit in the office at 10am and leave at 4pm and get a full-time salary. Maybe in class they prop up their laptop with word document opened ready for notes to be typed in, but one can hardly see it because the windows of skype (or IRC for engineering students) block it. 

When you have a group meeting, they have to walk their dogs, or have 'personal commitment,' or have social plans (I call thos things parties, by the way). So here I see a lot of unmotivated individuals enjoying state benefits. Have I been so unlucky to only have met non-motivated entrepreneur? 

Hopefully taking this course (Creation of Innovative SME) will allow me to meet more people with ambitions and similar kind of thinking. but hey, i have not got to the point yet!

okay, where was I? let's go back to the three conditions: smart people, rich people, and nice to live. 
from my experience, education in Finland is on - if not above - par of many other leading European or north American Universities. It produces a lot of extremely smart and competitive graduates. Tick one.

Rich people? Definitely (probably Nokia executives). But spending culture here is quite different than those in the Bay Area of California. They don't invest much in new businesses. they don't take many risks. In fact, venture capital may be even too flashy for many Finns, probably for the same reason why they don't drive a Ferrari even if they can: they don't want people to think they show off. Half tick.

Nice place to live? I'm not the best person to ask, as I will become a different person you normally talk to. But if you have lived here, you will know the answer is probably no. As for me, i will just list my favourite things about Finland: summer cottages, sauna, super-duper power shower, and floor heating in bathrooms. 

So why is Helsinki still on the top of the list of Richard Florida's index? Has he been here?

My family and I have only lived in South Central Austin (Barton Hills for you locals) for about 6 months now and one of the things I observed around the urban core was the marked differences from one neighborhood to another. You can see distinctions between Bouldin Creek and Dawson. Between Zilker and Barton Hills. Between Brentwood and Hyde Park. The differences are not just economic, but also social, political and religious as well. Those differences influence land use, education, the environment, voting patterns, church participation and types of businesses one would patronize. For the most part it was anecdotal evidence, but it was often confirmed by others collecting their own anecdotal evidence who had been here much, much longer. As a pastor seeking to bring renewal to people and communities in Austin it is critical that I understand these differences, learn how to see them, how to minister to them and how the gospel of reconciliation works within them.

That is why I was really happy to run across an excerpt of The Big Sort by Bill Bishop. Bishop (incidentally, who lives in Travis Heights) collaborated with other researchers, including Richard Florida of The Rise of the Creative Class, in mining through a great deal of historical demographic data and found some enlightening trends. While Florida focused on the creative class, Bishop focuses on how individual communities are being sorted into like-minded, homogeneous communities, into a balkanization of American communities.

I have posted some quotes below but I encourage you to read the full excerpt on NPR.com.

1. "...people don't live in states. They live in communities. And those communities are not close to being in equipoise, even within solidly blue or red states. They are, most of them, becoming even more Democratic or Republican. As Americans have moved over the past three decades, they have clustered in communities of sameness, among people with similar ways of life, beliefs, and, in the end, politics. Little, if any, of this political migration was by design, a conscious effort by people to live among like-voting neighbors. When my wife and I moved to Austin, we didn't go hunting for the most Democratic neighborhood in town. But the result was the same: moving to Travis Heights, we took a side and fell into a stark geographic pattern of political belief, one that has grown more distinct in presidential elections since 1976."
2. "In 1976, less than a quarter of Americans lived in places where the presidential election was a landslide. By 2004, nearly half of all voters lived in landslide counties."
3. "in every corner of society, people were creating new, more homogeneous relations. Churches were filled with people who looked alike and, more important, thought alike. So were clubs, civic organizations, and volunteer groups. Social psychologists had studied like-minded groups and could predict how people living and worshiping in homogeneous groups would react: as people heard their beliefs reflected and amplified, they would become more extreme in their thinking. ...Americans were busy creating social resonators, and the hum that filled the air was the reverberated and amplified sound of their own voices and beliefs."
4. "Technology, migration, and material abundance all allow people to "wrap themselves into cocoons entirely of their own making," Smith wrote. People are unwilling to live with trade-offs, he said. So they are "re-creating their environments to fit what they want in all kinds of ways, and one of the ways is they are finding communities that fit their values — where they don't have to live with neighbors or community groups that might force them to compromise their principles or their tastes."
5. "We all live with the results: balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible; a growing intolerance for political differences that has made national consensus impossible; and politics so polarized that Congress is stymied and elections are no longer just contests over policies, but bitter choices between ways of life."

So what does this mean for me as a pastor? It means that I need to be a greater student of our individual communities. That I need to be more aware of how the gospel communicates effectively in these communities. This also confirms our need to develop strong missional communities that are able to contextualize the gospel for their communities, rather than starting a large homogeneous church that brings in like-minded, already convinced people from across the city. It means that I need some more prayer and more leaders to help in bringing renewal to the city. And that means I better get more serious about discipleship and shared leadership.

One of the primary components of the gospel is the reconciliation between man and God and the subsequent reconciliation between one another. But as we continue to move apart from one another, the continuing balkanization and growing homogeneity will only increase the occurrences of people shouting at one another on street corners in protest of one another's viewpoints and beliefs. I would prefer that we sit together in our communities, our coffee shops, our backyards, our living rooms, our kitchen tables and our lives and open ourselves to one another personally in one-on-one settings in order to care for one another and share what we have learned. I believe that the church, who has been given the ministry of reconciliation, should be at the forefront of bringing renewal to our communities, by both declaring and demonstrating the gospel in our communities. For some, this may mean intentionally moving into communities that don't think like you think, or live like you live. As living in the urban core gets more costly, some will need to provide financial support to those enter the urban context. For each one of us, let us be the ones who step across the street first.

After having read through at least the excerpt, how does this affect 'the church' and how does 'the church' respond?  Also, in what ways has 'the church' fallen into similar traps?  Especially with #3 and #5.

Additional Resources

• Streaming Audio presentation from the National Meeting of CEOs for Cities (CEOs for Cities is worth checking out also)
• The Big Sort on Amazon.com
• The Big Sort excerpt on NPR.com
• Manufacturing Community post from CEOs for Cities
• The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida

A real friendship in NYC is codependent by definition. Good friends are the only way to maintain some sense of stability in such a dynamic, demanding environment. It's like that shitty sitcom, Friends, except instead of a few irritating douchebags sitting around drinking coffee in a lame neighborhood, we are a network of intoxicated, wound-up social machines. And chaos and craziness are so ingrained in our psyches that to feel calm or- God forbid- bored feels patently inorganic.

If you know me, you've heard me bitch about the city pretty consistently for the past few years. I left for ten days before I had to rush back for a city refuel- it felt like a year.

My pathetic week-and-a-half separation gave me clarity.

I love the city. It's in my blood, and nothing else will ever fit me as well. I was an outcast for most of my life, and NYC opened its cold, dirty arms to me and said, "It's cool...come here. We're all fucking neurotic, psychotic, sordid, needy, draining, absurd, and cynical. You'll totally fit in here. Deadpan humor is an aphrodisiac to the opposite sex. Your quirkiness and intensity...and yes, your sketchy, dangerous vacation tendencies...will be celebrated rather than condemned. Oh, and bars are open 'til 4 am!"

(Crazy taxis.)

That said, I need to study. I need to be bored. I need to be so uninspired by my surroundings that I don't even really want to go out.

(Central Park Zoo Benefit, Tuesday night. Our chief concern was handling the 9-1 open bar in such a way that we wouldn't black out later at Bungalow 8.)

In my three days in the city, two people asked me to photograph parties for them this weekend, two people asked me to go to the Hamptons, and honestly, if I'd chosen to stay, I would've.

(Yankees game, Thursday afternoon. I hate baseball; it's excruciatingly boring. But with months until football season, what else is there? We left in the 9th; Yanks pulled it out with a homer at the end. Oh, well.)

But I left. For now.

In this article, Pamela Skillings talks about the choices she finally faced up to: "My big paycheck was making me miserable. In short, I hated my job, but I was afraid to give up my hard-earned six-figure salary for what I really wanted: a career as an entrepreneur."

Skillings eventually bites the bullet and joins the ranks of people who find happiness in other ways than just a big paycheck. While her career move was not from one location to another, it did involve a lot of the same kinds of decisions that places like Duluth Superior need to have fall in their favor.

In the Duluth Superior area, several groups have been working on making sure that we're a competitive area to attract workers -- and therefore future economic development -- for several years. Duluth's Mayor, Don Ness, even sponsored a city task force in 2007 to address the issue. The issue is also at the core of economist Richard Florida's ideas about the future of the economy, though many economists understand the issue from similar perspectives.

The New York Times on Saturday has a story about what Iowa is having to do to attract workers. In part, the article talks about the steps that employers are having to make in Iowa to attract and retain workers. One example: "Stacy Berenguel, 28, a financial advisor at Citi Smith Barney, said that while she was very conscious of talk of a national recession, some of her friends in Iowa were switching jobs over company amenities, like fitness centers."

But the issue is about more than amenities. The Times articles says: "The state provides a small, advance view of what some economists predict will be a broader shortage of skilled workers in the next 20 or 30 years, as tens of millions of baby boomers retire from the workplace, and the economy produces more new jobs than workers. Potential consequences include slower economic growth and competitiveness, as well as higher wages for skilled workers and greater inequality."

The issue is highly contentious because some groups -- fearing immigration -- want to downplay the possible shortage.

The Duluth Superior area already has several groups working on understanding the consequences for the region and thinking of ways to make the area more attractive to workers. The whole Knight Creative Communities Initiative is about making the area more attractive to workers, but it builds off of earlier work done by The Northland Works Partnership and the Attracting and Retaining Young Adults Task Force of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

If you feel you need your portfolio looked at by a professional, feel free to reach out to your local Chapter. Click here for contact information.

Perhaps you are going to enjoy a couple of weeks of freedom and then dive into your job search, or maybe you already have a job lined up and want to make sure you made the right decision.  I suggest in your time off or for reassurance, to pick up Who's Your City by Richard Florida.   While most of us think that choosing a spouse or first job may be some of the biggest decisions in our life, Florida argues that choosing where to live tops these!

Who’s Your City provides the first ever-rankings of cities by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, young families and empty-nesters. And it grounds its new ideas and data to provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans of who move each year on how to choose where to live, and what those choices mean for their lives, happiness and communities.

Local book publisher Tony Dierckins suggests that college students needs to use more creativity when they are looking for jobs, and not just take what's easily given to them: "If their perfect job can’t be found on Superior Street, they could see if they can’t create some opportunities on their own."

In their staff editorial, The News Tribune says that the Northland can still be a closed place, but praises efforts like KCCI and FUSE Duluth's College Connections Program.

One young Minneapolis resident complains that he wants to live in Duluth, but there aren't stable jobs here. On the other hand, as a K-12 teacher, he's in one of the areas of the economy that's struggled the most. Duluth's job market has grown in the last few years, in both the number of jobs and in the wages paid for those jobs. But it's grown best in a few areas where training and education are key: aviation manufacturing, health care, higher education, and professional and technical services.

Finally, Amy Swanoski, a UWS graduate, writes that she will stay in the area because her family is here to support her. She's in another area -- media -- where the economy and the economy haven't been good either.

To look at some of the efforts going on around town, take a look:

The Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation's Attracting and Retaining Young Adults Task Force

FUSE Duluth

This is an hour presentation. It has been fantastic listening to him. There are many things that I could comment about it. I like the idea of the importance of taking decissions on where to live. I have been also surfing Florida's site Who's Your City, and I specially enjoyed the maps sections.

I have to say that the two main critics I had about him have him addressed. The first one, is that the there is no correlation on this issues, as he says in the economic phenomenon things are very complex, "association" better fits the term. The second thing, is that while looking at the new megaregions, he's using number of patents to measure innovation. Which I consider with too many flaws, specially at the international level, but in the video he said something: "Using number of patents is quite a rude thing to do, it could have been done better..." 

That by the way, is something that I commente on his blog. I wonder if I could ever influence a 0.01% him? :) That would be cool.

Checklist

Key issues and questions to address when starting your research:

• What do you like most and least about where you’re living now, and why are you looking for a new place?
• What are dealmakers? Dealbreakers?
• Is it important to you to find a job in a specific field or would you be happy employed in a more general labor market?
• What stage of life are you in and does that figure into your expectations?
• What’s most important to you right now — your work? Finding a mate?
• Your physical environment? Your family?
• How important are things like aesthetics, art, culture, and music?
• To what degree does weather and climate matter?
• Do you lead a flexible or more structured lifestyle? How would the people in a new city change (improve or worsen) this? What does maintaining (or changing) your lifestyle require? How would the people in a new city change (improve or worsen) this?
• Do you prefer big cityregions or smaller communities? Do you want to be closer to the action or further from the frenzy?

Take out a piece of paper and a pen and write down every single thing that comes to mind. Consider nothing too big or trivial.

STEP 2:

Friday, May 16, 12 noon

KCCI/APEX/The Northland Works/Minnesota Power Economic Development Brown Bag

Minnesota Power Building, Room 140,

30 West Superior Street, Duluth.

Who Can Come? Everyone is welcome and it’s FREE!

How? Bring your own lunch and enjoy the conversation.

Speakers:

Jennifer Hawkins, Senior Economic Development Analyst, Minnesota Power.

John Bennett, Regional Extension Educator, University of Minnesota Extension

GLUE, which stands for the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, is an organization formed in late 2007. Its mission is to serve as a forum for people to exchange stories, ideas, and best practices between otherwise isolated Great Lakes cities. The GLUE coalition is currently made up of over 20 Great Lakes cities and is working to promote the power, aid in the transformation, and address the shared challenges of similarly-storied older industrial cities. Come hear more about this initiative and how you can be a part of it from one of the young professionals spearheading Duluth’s involvement.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:

Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website: http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com

Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.