Creative Class

World-at-night, satellite, mega-regions researcher and MPI collaborator Tim Gulden looks at the mega-region data and concludes it’s a bad idea (shooting it down, that is): The satellite is likely to fall where very few people are.

Chris Potter wrote up a pretty funny (he calls it snarky, but I say darn witty) item on Who’s Your City? – and well moi – for Pittsburgh’s City Paper yesterday.  Using his powers of investigative journalism, he quickly figured out that moi’s wife, Rana, also writes a syndicated advice column with her three sisters. Chris tongue-in-cheekily wrote in asking for advice, and – well – the “sisters” responded in their typical fashion, good-naturedly skewering moi along the way.

Dear Lowdown,
I had a whirlwind romance with a great guy – handsome, smart, and almost too hip for words. But eventually he left because, he said, I didn’t appreciate him or his talents enough. I thought I was over him at first … but I’ve just
discovered that he’s found a woman, and a life, that provide excitement I could never match. Is there any way I can get him back? Or at least to stop grieving over his loss?

Sign me,
Heartbroken in Pittsburgh

Smart, talented and handsome? I live in a suburb of Detroit, and let’s just say when something like that comes around, women scratch each other’s eyes out to hold on. And let me tell you, they hold on for dear life. What were you thinking, sista?
— Reham

I encourage you to analyze your actions. Start a list and write down what you did right and what you did wrong. Hopefully, the second time around you can be more upbeat and appreciative.
— Ruba

First of all, calm your aching loins. Was he really all that hip? Get over it; I’m sure there are other men out there for you.
— Rana

I always say, true love is so hard to find. You need to give this guy a second chance and make your way back apologetically into the arms of this perfect “place.” If he’s the one, he’ll take you back and make sure you treat him right this time around.
— Leena

I’m trying my darnedest to convince them to do more of this, so write in with questions of your own – or your friends – and I’ll make sure to send them over, and get the lowdown to get some personalized advice for you too.

The SXSW roster is out.  NPR’s All Songs Considered Bob Boilen gives a quick rundown of band locations:

• 176 bands from New York
• 168 Austin
• 96 Los Angeles
• 44 San Francisco
• 3 Tehran

It’s a very global list. My quick perusal counts: Canada, UK, Netherlands, Brazil, Norway, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, Japan, Sweden, Argentina, Slovenia,  Malta, Portugal , Italy, Denmark, Germany, Australia,  Ireland, New Zealand,  France, Iceland, Czech Republic,  Colombia,   Norway, Russia, Virgin Islands,  Israel, Indonesia, South Africa …and more.

Looking at the list, it is truly amazing how global the production of “new” music – or should I see reasonably successful indie bands – has become. But interestingly, our ongoing analysis shows that (employed) musicians and the music industry is incredibly clustered, even though the physical reasons for such clustering are minimal (the music industry isn’t dependent on natural resources or big factories) and it does not appear that music clusters are necessarily determined by local population or income levels (though both play something of a role).

The Wall Street Journal says the Dem primary and the general election will likely turn on the working class white vote.

The working-class white men who toil in the steel
mills and auto plants here are part of a volatile cohort that has long
helped steer the nation’s political course. Once, blue-collar males
were the bedrock of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition. They
became “Reagan Democrats,” helping to propel Ronald Reagan into office
in the 1980s … Blue-collar men could also emerge as an important swing constituency in November — either backing the Democrats’ eventual nominee, or shifting to some
degree toward Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee,
whose war record and straight-talking approach could make him appealing
to many working-class men …

I don’t think the country is ready for a woman
president yet,” says Duane Tkac, a burly vocational instructor at a
prison here and a member of the local branch of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters union. “The country is in too much turmoil. I
don’t think she can handle the pressure, the terrorists.” He plans to
vote for Sen. Obama. Don Pompelia, retired from the Air Force, supports
Sen. Clinton. “I’m hoping Hillary gets the nomination. But if she
doesn’t, I’m not voting for that guy. I’m going Republican,” he booms
as he picks up his morning coffee at McDonald’s. “There are going to be
a lot of people crossing over to the Republicans because he’s black.

First off, while two anecdotes don’t paint the broad picture these comments reflect the racism and sexism that not only deeply penetrate working class America but that have only been heightened by growing economic and social anxiety.

But second: I simply don’t buy the article’s central premise.  It’s like saying farmers determined the 1932 election. Yes, they played a role but the key was FDR galvanizing the then emerging working class vote.  Like it or not, the industrial economy is in decline.  The numbers of blue-collar voters are too small to determine the general election. And, remember, Obama won Iowa handily (the state with highest percentage of working-class voters according to the WSJ) with a broad message of change, optimism and the future.  This election will revolve around the new (creative) class and its intersection with race and gender.

The New York Times Editors pick up on a theme we’ve been discussing here:

Voters deserve to hear a lot more from the presidential candidates —
in position papers, public speeches and debates — about how they intend
to help the cities. Will they, for example, continue President Bush’s
efforts to shortchange passenger rail, while China makes huge
investments in transportation and its population centers? …

It’s not like there is no leadership on these issues, it’s just not
coming from Washington or the presidential candidates. In fact, they
might take note with some concern that the national leader on handgun
control and a range of other urban issues — from environment to public
health — is Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, who has presidential
aspirations of his own.

Like other mayors and governors, Mr. Bloomberg has been forced to
step into the yawning gaps left by a feckless federal government. He
has sued out-of-town gun dealers in an effort to combat violent crimes;
advocated congestion pricing and green buildings and mandated hybrid
taxis to help the environment; and banned smoking in public places to
fight cancer. Without much spending, he is changing things for the
better …

There can be no substitute for national leadership. The
president must provide it, and Americans deserve to know how the
candidates would step up to the challenge.

All well and good: but the fact of the matter is an urban policy is a whole lot bigger and more important than social policy. It is the key element in competitiveness policy. Urbanization (read density) is the key element of productivity growth and innovation. Urban policy is social, environmental, economic, and technology policy all rolled into one.

Your thoughts?

The NY Times John Markoff writes:

The 2008 Index of Silicon Valley … found that from 2002 to 2006, middle-wage
jobs fell to 46 percent of the work force, from 52 percent. …  In all, more than 50,000 middle-income jobs have disappeared over the four years measured by the study. The
vanishing jobs — defined as those paying $30,000 to $80,000 — represent
workers who had been in the lower part of the white-collar pyramid,
including secretaries, clerks and customer support representatives.

Just 22 percent of first time buyers can afford the median price of a Silicon Valley home, according to the report.  And our own measures show it has one of the highest levels of income inequality and housing unaffordability around.

Nouriel Roubini is very worried:

A vicious circle is currently underway in the United States, and its
reach could broaden to the global economy. America’s financial crisis
has triggered a severe credit crunch that is making the US recession
worse, while the deepening recession is leading to larger losses in
financial markets, thus undermining the wider economy. There is now a
serious risk of a systemic meltdown in US financial markets as huge
credit and asset bubbles collapse …

Indeed, adding up all these losses in financial markets, the sum will
hit a staggering $1 trillion. Tighter credit rationing will then
further hamper the ability of households and firms to borrow, spend,
invest, and sustain economic growth. The risk that a systemic financial
crisis will drive a more pronounced US and global recession has quickly
gone from being a theoretical possibility to becoming an increasingly
plausible scenario.

Salon’s Dear Cary:

I have a problem that I can’t get perspective on, because it’s
got so many issues rolled up into one: finances, lifestyle, career,
stress and economic uncertainty. Here is the situation: My wife and I
have been married for two years; we are in our early 30s and do not
have kids yet. She has a good job in academia, and two years ago, after finishing my Ph.D., I got a lucrative job at a hedge fund. Late last year we sold our cheap, tiny condo and bought a big house in a fancy suburb with not a lot of money down.

The problem is that, ever since we moved in, I’ve been having a
visceral feeling that this move was a terrible, terrible mistake — I
hate the feeling of slowly falling asleep in suburbia and never waking
up. And I hate the commute. And I hate not being able to walk anywhere. And the lack of character. And the McMansions. And the SUVs. I want out and I want out now.

Read the rest including the advice here.

A popular video on YouTube shows Kellie Pickler, the dizzy platinum blonde from “American Idol,” appearing on the Fox game show “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” during celebrity week. Selected from a third-grade geography curriculum, the $25,000 question asked:
“Budapest is the capital of what European country?” Ms. Pickler threw up both hands and looked at the large blackboard perplexed. “I thought Europe was a country,” she said. Playing it safe, she chose to copy the answer offered by one of the genuine fifth graders: Hungary. “Hungry?” she
said, eyes widening in disbelief. “That’s a country? I’ve heard of Turkey. But Hungry? I’ve never heard of it.”

From the New York Times review of Susan Jacoby’s new book, The Age of American Unreason.

What would Steven Johnson say?

Americans’ view of the economy 1992-2008.

The full report from the Pew Foundation here.