Creative Class

In the ongoing dialogue over which matters more the Chi or the Pitts, Where Blog argues that:

As sociologists have recently documented, a new phase is being added to
the life cycle for young people in developed countries: the odyssey.
Young people have a tendency, once they have their diploma in hand, to
strike out into the world, seeking their proverbial fortunes. This
creates a diasporic network of people across the country and the world
with strong roots in a community other than they one in which they are
living. As its title suggests, this is exactly what The Burgh Diaspora
covers in depth: Pittsburgh’s diasporic population, often considered to
be one of the most extensive such networks. … Pittsburgh’s network, now,
provides it with a unique opportunity to lift smaller businesses
looking for a less overwhelming (read: risky) market in which to
develop their product. Pittsburgh is able, through its extended
diasporic network in Chicago, to earn free word-of-mouth advertising
from its expatriate sons and daughters that could potentially drive
these smaller companies east to the Appalachians.

Their dialogue focuses on what you can think of as an “out-diaspora” – leverage ex-Pittsburghers (or name your city) elsewhere as sources of ideas or even attract them back home. It’s a useful and important notion. In doing the research for Who’s Your City, I came across many examples of extremely successful people who in their middle years expressed their desire to and sometimes did move back home.  But as I also point out, no matter how good a community is at leveraging its out-diaspora and attracting some back, the numbers can’t add up – you’ll never attract back as many as you lose. That said, there are many other useful roles such an out-diaspora can provide, and BurghDiaspora and others are right to focus on it as one of a number of leverage points.

But my main point is, most North American cities – and certainly Pittsburgh – have extensive “in-diasporas” – that is in-migrants who have chosen to live there – that may provide even more leverage. These include students, the sub-group of foreign born students, domestic in-migrants and foreign-born ones as well. As Annalee Saxenian’s research has pointed out these in-diasporas are a central element in the growth, evolution and globalization of Silicon Valley. This to my mind is the even more critical element in people globalization for regions.

How can regions begin to leverage and use their in-diasporas?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 5:14 pm and is filed under Cities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.