Archive for the ‘International Creative Class’ Category
My latest Globe and Mail column is out.
This week, the mayor of Canada’s biggest city did something
remarkable: He basically declared war on firearms. In response to
several highly publicized shootings, David Miller announced that he
wants Toronto’s City Council to crack down on gun clubs, firing ranges
and businesses that manufacture, assemble and distribute weapons.“Do we as a society value safety, or do we value a hobby that creates
danger?” he asked. “That hobby directly results in people being shot
and killed on the streets of our city.”Not surprisingly, Mr. Miller’s bold move has generated a great deal of
controversy. At the same time, it reflects a growing trend in the
world’s major cities.Just as he is taking the lead in trying to control guns, figures such
as Michael Bloomberg in New York City, Richard Daley in Chicago, Job
Cohen in Amsterdam and Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London,
have explored new approaches to everything from education, crime and
smoking bans to environment and climate change – even bringing modern
management techniques to government. While there remains more work to
do, their efforts and those of their peers have made their
jurisdictions safer, smarter, greener, more aesthetic, more efficient,
wealthier and more globally competitive.state and national leaders.
Overall, these mayors, as well as premiers and governors, are proving
themselves to be much more in tune with global trends than are heads of
In today’s world, cities, regions and mega-regions composed of two or
more cities and their suburbs have become key competitive players
alongside global companies and nation states. Canada and the U.S., for
example, are not competing against China and India. Rather, specific
regions in North America are competing with dynamic regions such as
Bangalore and Shanghai.
Two new books –
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria and
The Second World by Parag Khanna – argue that the new global economy power will be more dispersed and multipolar.
Mr. Zakaria believes we are experiencing modern history’s third great
power shift, after the rise of the West from the 15th century on, and
the rise of the U.S. in the 19th century. But he argues that this
latest transition is not so much about the decline of America as it is
about “the rise of the rest,” and by that he means much more than
simply China or India. The end result will be a “landscape that is
quite different from the one we have lived in until now – one defined
and directed from many places and by many peoples.” Mr. Khanna
similarly predicts that we are headed toward a “global,
multi-civilizational, multipolar” world with three superpowers: the
U.S., China and the European Union.
Each of the Big Three powers will assert its influence differently, but
the intense demand for energy and resources means that the underlying
goal will be the same. And the main battlefield for this geopolitical
competition, Mr. Khanna argues, is the “second world” – about 40
strategically important “transition” states whose relationships with
the superpowers have the capacity to tip the balance.
Like both of them, I agree that it’s a big mistake to view power in
this new world as a competition confined only to large nations. In
fact, small states will increasingly find themselves with more
influence and more room to manoeuvre. Their competitive position will
be strengthened and they will have the opportunity to act as important
stabilizers in the global system.
They are already doing very well, economically speaking.
According to my Global Creativity Index, Sweden (first), Finland
(third), Switzerland (fifth), Denmark (sixth), Iceland (seventh),
Canada (11th) and Australia (12th) are right up there with the U.S.
(fourth) and Japan (second). Interestingly, Russia, China and India sit
well down the list: 25th, 36th and 41st, respectively.
Canada and Australia are seen as models for open immigration and talent
attraction, Ireland as a prototype for economic revitalization. Denmark
and Sweden show how markets and welfare states can work together and
why high taxes do not necessarily mean low competitiveness.
In my view, these small states, among several others, are the best
places to look for innovative, alternative models of economic
prosperity and social cohesion.
A big reason for the improved competitive stature of smaller nations
stems from the shifting nature of global competition. Today,
competitiveness no longer turns on market size, raw material, control
over natural resources or even business costs, but rather on which
places can best attract and retain innovative and entrepreneurial
talent.
Ultimately, it is less in nations and more around these regional
locations that talent wants to be and where it clusters. Global talent
is not migrating to England but to London; entrepreneurs and technical
talent are not going to China and India, but to Beijing, Shanghai and
Bangalore.
In this regard, even the most thoughtful commentators remain overly
enthralled with the power of the nation state and miss the rising
importance of the city region.
In fact, the best way to understand the past century of U.S. global
hegemony is through this lens. It’s not the size of America’s market or
its natural resources or its military supremacy that defined its
ascendance and dominance. Rather, it is America’s role as an attractor
of (and haven for) the world’s top talent.
That history includes many great entrepreneurs, from Andrew Carnegie
(born in Scotland) in steel to Andy Grove (Hungary) in semi-conductors,
as well as the influx of scientists (Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi) and
artists (Marc Chagall, Igor Stravinsky, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe) who
fled Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. In Silicon Valley, a third to a
half of all start-ups have someone born overseas on their founding team.
Yet our system for making global policy shows little sign of
adjusting to this shift, because it remains overwhelmingly organized
around heads of states, foreign affairs ministers and central bankers.
Mr. Zakaria worries that even as U.S. companies pioneer globalization,
and while America remains “the most open, flexible society in the
world,” its government is impeding the country’s ability to adapt.
Regions such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago are
well positioned to compete for global talent, but restrictive U.S.
government policies on immigration and homeland security make it harder
for them to do so.
U.S. presidential candidate John McCain says a new “League of
Democracies” – composed of about 40 advanced democratic nations – is
needed to inform global policy-making and bring stability to the world
system. While national leaders have shown themselves to be increasingly
ineffective and out of touch, it is mayors, premiers and governors who
have consistently demonstrated their ability to navigate today’s
wrenching economic and social shifts.
For my money, a League of Cities and Regions – made up of the world’s
largest cities, regions, states and provinces – is more in tune with
what the emerging “post-American” world really needs.
“In terms of what I am doing, I would pretty much say hands down that Toronto is the best place in the world.” That’s a quote from UoT chemical geneticist, Guri Giaever, in a feature story on Toronto’s rising scientific prowess in Nature. Click here to download. Add to that what is happening in physics at Waterloo and the mega-region is emerging as serious global scientific centers. I’d say the same thing about what we’re doing at the Prosperity Institute and across the university in my field.
Mike Tanier over at Football Outsiders sees the power of the mega-region:
Buffalo has long been one of those in-between cities: small by international
standards, but large enough to host the Bills and the NHL Sabres. Now, Buffalo
is close to losing some of its big-league luster. The Bills will play three
preseason and five regular season games in Toronto, starting this year and
ending in 2012. The so-called Toronto Series is a likely precursor to a
permanent move to Canada. …This region spans two nations: the Buffalo-Rochester area in western New York,
and the Toronto metro area in southern Canada. Toronto is the financial capital
of Canada, and if you yoke its economy onto Buffalo-Rochester’s, you get a
powerhouse mega-region.Richard Florida, economist and author of Who’s Your City?, explains
the mega-region concept. “Mega-regions are the driving forces of the world
economy. A mega-region is an area that hosts business and economic activity on a
large scale, generating a lion’s share of the world’s economic activity and an
even larger share of the world’s innovation and technological discoveries.”
Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester (TBR) is one of just 40 significant mega-regions in
the world. According to Florida, it’s responsible for $530 billion in economic
output. It also ranks highly among world mega-regions in worldwide innovation
patents and what Florida calls “star scientists,” two indicators that TBR is
positioned to compete against other regions as a high-tech research and
industrial center.Strapping U.S. and Canadian cities together seems a little disingenuous at
first, but Florida explains that it’s vital to everyone’s financial interests to
think outside the borders of states and nations. “Much of our public policy
ignores the rise of mega-regions and, sometimes, works against them. If we want
to bolster economic competitiveness, policy leaders across country borders and
state lines must pursue policies that take mega-regions into account.”Buffalo and Toronto are just a few hours apart; Maple Leafs fans often travel
to Buffalo when their teams play the Sabres, and Buffalo baseball fans often
take day trips to watch the Blue Jays. By moving across the
border and closer to the center of the TBR mega-region, the Bills can acquire a
much-needed influx of corporate-caliber cash. “The Bills are like your parents
who bought their house 50 years ago,” Robinson explained. “Their mortgage is
paid off, so they don’t need a lot of income to get by.” The Wilson family can
turn a tidy profit on television revenues, but the next owners will cough up as
much as $800 million. They’ll need luxury box revenue and other income sources
to offset their initial debts. “We don’t have a deep stable of companies,”
Robinson said. “The Bills couldn’t dream of selling a PSL.” Ideally, Toronto
would provide the companies, with Buffalo providing the loyal fan base.It’s one thing to embrace macroeconomics, but quite another to root for a
team that sings a different national anthem before games. While Bills fans are
among the most loyal in the NFL, Robinson is not sure how many
would follow the team to Canada, not when the Steelers, Browns, Jets, Giants,
and Patriots offer attractive regional rooting interests. “Over time, it would
settle into the relationship locals have with the Blue Jays,” Robinson said.
“The Bills would be a nearby team to go to.”However, the Toronto Series, with its multi-venue format, could help fans
acclimate to the idea of a regional team. The Toronto Series allows the Rogers
group to use the novelty and rarity of NFL football to charge super-premium
prices to Toronto fans. At the same time, the Wilson family gets a $78 million
payday from the Rogers group, and can also charge slightly more for games at
Rich Stadium because of decreased supply. Over a period of a few seasons, the
Wilsons and the Rogers conglomerate could tweak the 7-to-1 Buffalo-Toronto game
arrangement. The Bills could end up playing four games in each venue, just as
the Packers split time between Green Bay and Milwaukee in the 1970s and 80s.Some fans may abandon the Bills if they become Canadians or vagabonds, but
Florida sees a big difference between a move within the TBR region and a move
to, say, Los Angeles. “Economic development, more than ever before, is about
talent attraction and retention. Creative types are concentrating in communities
that are open, diverse, and thick with an array of amenities. Major league
sports help to create an authentic community, one that is appealing and engaging
for people of all walks of life.” The designation “major league city” still
means something in the world of high finance. Toronto will use pro football to enhance its
international profile; the official Toronto Series website
(www.billsintoronto.com) touts the city as “international, sophisticated,
ethnically diverse, fascinating and passionate about sports.” That designation
could apply to the whole TBR region, which could in turn use the Bills as a
drawing card. “Authenticity is important to creative workers,” Florida said.
“Professional sports teams, similar to a region’s arts community and its unique
neighborhoods, help make a region unique.”The Bills are one of the few things lending “authenticity” to Buffalo;
without them (and the Sabres), Buffalo has little to offer that can’t be found
in Elmira or Erie, Pennsylvania. “The Bills are our last lingering vestige of
being a major league city,” Robinson said. “People take a lot of pride in them.”
Re-imagine Buffalo as a small part of a thriving mega-region, and the fans of
western New York can keep their allegiance to the Bills.
Even with a border in the way, the mega-region remains a big, growing “commutable” market. In Bos-Wash, Philly and DC are becoming the new suburbs so to speak, for those who can’t afford or can’t deal with the hustle and bustle of NYC but want a more “urban” alternative. Buffalo can benefit from Toronto’s market size and unrelenting growth. Already, Canadians are the no. 1 immigrant group in Buffalo. Who knows? Eventually, as housing prices continue to rise in Toronto, Buffalo may well be able to capitalize on its huge housing cost advantage, combined with its lakefront, authentic neighborhoods, universities, healthcare system, and arts and cultural assets to begin to attract talent from the mega, and perhaps, the world.
And I’ll sure be lining up for my Tor-Buf-Chester Bill’s tickets.
The always extremely interesting Kevin Phillips in the Washington Post:
Here, then, is the unnerving possibility: that another, imminent global
crisis could make the half-century between the 1970s and the 2020s the
equivalent for the United States of what the half-century before 1950
was for Britain. This may well be the Big One: the multi-decade endgame
of U.S. ascendancy. The chronology makes historical sense — four
decades of premature jitters segueing into unhappy reality.
Matt Yglesias comments:
The United States is currently the richest country in the world by a pretty
wide margin. Since China and India are both growing from a much smaller
base, it should be possible for them to maintain higher average growth
rates over an extended period of time eventually overtake us in terms
of overall GDP.
The U.S. does not have to be overtaken by another country for its competitiveness to falter and its quality of life deteriorate. The biggest threat to US competitiveness, from my perspective, stems from the increasing global competition for talent. While the US once held a powerful upper hand in attracting global talent which fueled its technological and entrepreneurial edge, the edge has diminished for three interrelated reasons. One, US policies have made it harder for talented outsiders to get in. Two, small states like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and some northern European countries have increased their ability to attract global talent. And three, both China and India (who have supplied a great deal of US technical talent in recent decades) are working to retain more of their young talent and attract back those that left.
I don’t think we will see the ascendancy of another great power for some time, but the US may well lose ground – the cumulative result of small but significant improvements in competitive position from many quarters. And while I would never count the US out – its transformative and regenerative capabilities are unparalleled – the economic challenges America faces today do seem significantly greater than at any time in recent memory.
Ziga Turk, minister at the Government office for growth, national coordinator for the Lisbon strategy, and a professor at the University of Ljubljana. The European Council The European Council will be presided over by Slovenia this year and Professor Turk is the Minister in charge for the Lisbon Strategy in Slovenia. He reports that:
The prime ministers or heads of states of
the 27 member states did acknowledge that: “A key
factor for future growth is the full development of the potential for innovation
and creativity of European citizens built on European culture and
excellence in science.” … Explicitly mentioning the creative industries was beyond the
vision of those who were negotiating the text that would be acceptable to all 27
member states …It is the free movement of the entire
creative class that can make sure that in case wean put the best person to the job. Each
individual member state is too small a market for the highly skilled and their
movement is hampered through all kinds of obstacles.
More here.
The UK announces a substantial new initiative to build the creative economy. Compare to literal silence from all US presidential candidates (h/t: Al Mair). The Guardian reports:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the culture secretary, Andy Burnham,
today unveiled the action plan, Creative Britain: New Talents for the
New Economy, in what the government is labelling the first-ever
comprehensive, state-supported plan to move the creative industries
from the “margins to the mainstream of economic and policy thinking” in
the UK.The action plan outlines 26 commitments for both
government and the creative industries to nurture talent, create jobs
and to drive the UK’s international competitiveness.One of the initiatives is to develop a new annual World Creative Business
Conference that will act as the “centrepiece” of an international push
to make the UK the “world’s creative hub”.“We need to give our creative industries a powerful global presence and the opportunity to
compare themselves with the very best in the world,” the government
said. “We hope [it] will become the equivalent of Davos [World Economic
Forum] for the creative industries.”Our vision is of a Britain in 10 years’ time where the local economies
in our biggest cities are driven by creativity,” said Burnham.
Wow. Somebody is really doing it.
Guess how many Americans in the picture? The New York Times on the globalization of the Oscars (h/t: Jesse Elliott):
The morning after the Academy Awards dawned here with a realization: There will
be a lot of gold leaving Los Angeles in the next few days. JavierBardem, Marion
Cotillard, Daniel Day-Lewis and Tilda Swinton are each taking statues across the Atlantic. Oscars for art direction, makeup and costume design all went to people for whom the United
States is a passport stamp …The lustrous industrial pedigree of Alan Mencken and Disney had three songs from “Enchanted”
in the running, but all were trumped by a pair of footloose buskers, Glen
Hansard and Marketa Irglova, one Irish, one Czech, for “Falling Slowly” from “Once,”
an Irish film that was made on a budget that might pay the craft services bill
on a studio picture for a week …Some of that international hegemony — or absence of parochialism, depending
on your perspective — goes all the way to the top. Daniel Battsek, chief
executive of Miramax, and Peter Rice, president of Fox Searchlight, are both
British …
Now in the past, most of these folks would have “chosen” to live in the states, like most other creatives. Now, not so much … Could we be seeing the “flight” of the creative class … hmmmmm …
Finland top the list on a recent multinational study of education. Here’s why, according to this Wall Street Journal report:
High-school students here rarely get more than a
half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor
societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the
gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over
college and kids don’t start school until age 7.Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers
are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores
by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens
finished among the world’s C students even as U.S. educators piled on
more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S.
counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love
sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they’re
way ahead in math, science and reading – on track to keeping Finns
among the world’s most productive …Visitors and teacher trainees can peek at how it’s
done from a viewing balcony perched over a classroom at the Norssi
School in Jyväskylä, a city in central Finland. What they see is a
relaxed, back-to-basics approach. The school, which is a model campus,
has no sports teams, marching bands or prom …The Norssi School is run like a teaching hospital,
with about 800 teacher trainees each year. Graduate students work with
kids while instructors evaluate from the sidelines. Teachers must hold
master’s degrees, and the profession is highly competitive: More than
40 people may apply for a single job. Their salaries are similar to
those of U.S. teachers, but they generally have more freedom. …Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as
they shape students to national standards. “In most countries,
education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the
entrepreneurs,” says Mr. Schleicher, of the Paris-based OECD, which
began the international student test in 2000 …Finnish high-school senior Elina Lamponen saw the
differences firsthand. She spent a year at Colon High School in Colon,
Mich., where strict rules didn’t translate into tougher lessons or
dedicated students, Ms. Lamponen says. She would ask students whether
they did their homework. They would reply: ” ‘Nah. So what’d you do
last night?’” she recalls. History tests were often multiple choice.
The rare essay question, she says, allowed very little space in which
to write. In-class projects were largely “glue this to the poster for
an hour,” she says. Her Finnish high school forced Ms. Lamponen, a
spiky-haired 19-year-old, to repeat the year when she returned.
No sports teams, no marching band, no prom. A relaxed approach. Less homework. Kids can be themselves. I’ll have lots more to say on education in Who’s Your City? What do you think?
We were in Valencia last week for an event on the New Urban Culture. The city is glorious. The mixture of historic architecture, stunning Calatrava buildings and an incredible waterfront is intoxicating. Right now the city is in the midst of a debate over how to redevelop that waterfront. On the one side are those that would like to make it into a Monte Carlo sort of place – with a private water-front oriented to America’s Cup races and other events. On the other are those who would like to see the waterfront be developed as a public asset with a mix of housing, retail, commercial and public use development.
Here’s an interview I did with El Pais, Spain’s leading newspaper (in Spanish).