Creative Class

Great graphic from the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London.

The Center monitored Twitter in selected global cities to identify patterns of use and networks in these places (via planetizen).

Economic inequality has been mounting in the United States, hitting levels not seen since the Gilded Age.  There are numerous explanations for this phenomenon, ranging from the decline of unions and high-paid manufacturing jobs to the rise of globalization, of new technology, and knowledge-based work (what economists call “skill-based technical change”) and the bifurcation of the labor market into high-skill and low-skill jobs.

But do our cities and changing economic landscape play a role as well?  There are good reasons to suspect that they do.  For one, the past decade or so has seen a sorting of population by skill, occupation and human capital, (see my 2006 article “Where the Brains Are”).  For another, it is well known that both highly skilled and talented people and productive firms and high-tech industries tend to cluster and agglomerate together to create powerful economic advantages.

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The big winners in Sunday night’s Grammy Awards took many by surprise. Arcade Fire took home the record of the year for “The Suburbs” and the country group Lady Antebellum’s song “Need You Now” won awards for best record and best song of the year. The former is from Montreal, the latter hail from Nashville.  The internet and social media exploded with a raft of incredulous messages – - a Tumblr called “Who is Arcade Fire?” compiled dozens of them.  The Today show’s Matt Lauer blurted: “I’ve never heard of the Arcade Fire. I’m going to have to download them.”

Could these wins reflect something of a broader trend?  Is the landscape of popular music changing? Could it be that new upstart music scenes in Nashville, Montreal, and elsewhere are gaining ground on New York and LA, the long-established hegemonic centers of commercial and recorded music?

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Which of these two decisions do you think has a bigger impact on someone’s life: finding the right job or finding the right significant other? No one’s going to argue with the notion that where you live affects your employment prospects. But the place you call home has a lot to do with your chances of finding the right partner as well. Having an enticing “mating market” matters as much or more than a vibrant labor market.  It’s not just that some places have more singles than others.  If you’re a single man or single woman, the odds of meeting that special someone vary dramatically across the country. Read Richard’s full post here and check out an interesting article from the Village Voice here.

The map below shows which cities have a surplus of single men and single women. 

The Creative Class Group was invited to collaborate and provide feedback on Frankfurt’s New Work City as a concept of a new way of working for the mobile Creative Class.  Read our review below and let us know your thoughts.

The Creative Class, the Fourth Place and Frankfurt’s “New Work City” at The Squaire

By: The Creative Class Group

We are in the midst of a deep and fundamental transformation in the nature of capitalism.  The economic crisis of 2008 was more than just a transient correction; it represents the critical break point in the shift from industrial to knowledge-based and creative capitalism.  Even as leading economic indicators are beginning to trend positively, the fact remains that our economy is undergoing a Great Reset.

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The economic fallout from the nation’s housing crisis continues to be geographically concentrated. New figures on foreclosure rates for 2010 from RealtyTrac show that Sunbelt metros continue to see the highest levels of foreclosure in the nation.

Miami tops the list with more than 171,704 foreclosures followed by Phoenix with 124,720 and Riverside with 101,210. The map above prepared by Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute shows the 20 metros with the highest total number of foreclosures based on the RealtyTrac data.

And, 19 of the 20 metros with the highest foreclosure rates are located in just three Sunbelt states –  Nevada, California, and Florida. In Las Vegas, a staggering one in 10 housing units (10.88 percent) went through foreclosure in 2010.

Unfortunately, foreclosure rates were up in nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of the 206 metros  tracked by RealtyTrac.  But, foreclosure activity was down in the 10 metros with the highest foreclosure rates, which could be a signal that the worst of the housing crisis is finally past.

U.S. housing prices are continuing to reset according to the latest Case-Shiller housing price figures.

From Calculated Risk

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That’s the title of my new article with Kevin Stolarick and Charlotta Mellander just out in the Journal of Economic Geography.

Here’s the abstract:

The geographic clustering of economic activity has long been understood in terms of economies of scale across space. This paper introduces the construct of geographies of scope, which we argue is driven by substantial, large-scale geographic concentrations of related skills, inputs and capabilities. We examine this through an empirical analysis of the entertainment industry across U.S. metropolitan areas from 1970 to 2000. Our findings indicate that geographies of scope (or collocation among key related entertainment subsectors and inputs) explain much of the economic geography of entertainment even when scale is controlled for, though our regressions over time suggest the role of scope is decreasing. Furthermore, we find that the entertainment sector as a whole and its key subsectors are significantly concentrated in two superstar cities—New York and Los Angeles—far beyond what their population size (or scale effects) can account for, while the pattern falls off dramatically for other large regions.

The full article is here.

We all know Lady Gaga as a singer, dancer and performer.   But in the last two years, she’s climbed from just an entertainer to a monster endorser and creative visionary.

According to CCG’s very own CEO Rana Florida,

She [Lady Gaga] has changed the way endorsement deals work. She’s putting more of her influence, thought and creative energy into a line rather than just endorsing them. She has been able to successfully marry music, fashion and culture, making her a truly visual maven. She is her own movement.

Read more about Lady Gaga’s influence  at CNN International.

Is Lady Gaga the first artist to truly exemplify the qualities of the creative class?  How has she leveraged the 3-T’s: technology, talent and tolerance to build her brand  and influence?

Terrible tragedies like last week’s mass shootings in Tucson cause us to search for deeper answers. Many were quick to blame America’s divisive and vitriolic political culture for the violence; others portray the shooter as an unhinged, clinically deranged person with his own unfathomable agenda. Arizona has been Ground Zero for the battle over immigration. Were the state’s political and economic travails a contributing factor? There has been some talk about guns, too. Might tighter gun control laws have made a difference?

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