Creative Class

Andrew Sullivan points to a new Ipsos/Reuters poll about how consumers in some two dozen countries are cutting back. Makes logical logical sense, on the face of it: Consumers are cutting back most on discretionary items like entertainment and vacations. But if we’re going to someday build a new kind of economy based less on durable goods – the old housing-auto, fordist industrial complex so to speak – and more around experiences, personal development, new technology-based and creative industries, the massive slashing of entertainment spending does not bode well for the longer-run. This may simply be an issue of wording: People likely see “entertainment” as a broad catch-all category. And the fact that education is holding up relatively well is a good sign.

Jon Rauch draws a connection between introverts and bloggers (via Andrew Sullivan):

I suspect a lot of bloggers may be introverts, because blogging is great if you like to sit in front of the internet all day. If not for my aversion to specializing in one subject, I probably would have been an academic historian, because I think it would have suited me to work in libraries back before there was an internet.

So I asked Cambridge personality psychologist Jason Rentfrow about it:

I would be inclined to think that Openness would be a big predictor of blogging because it’s related to curiosity and reflection… But just as my work on music and entertainment preferences indicates that personality is related to preferences for particular content, I would imagine personality is related to the content of people’s blogs.

Rentfrow sent along a link to this study on bloggers and personality:

We examined whether the Big Five personality traits predicted blogging. The results of two studies indicate that people who are high in openness to new experience and high in neuroticism are likely to be bloggers. Additionally, neuroticism was moderated by gender indicating that women who are high in neuroticism are more likely to be bloggers… The results indicate that personality factors impact the likelihood of being a blogger and have implications for understanding those who blog.

As for Rauch, his being wary of over-specialization leads the armchair psychologist in me to believe he is likely to be high in openness-to-experience as well as being an introvert. Highly creative people frequently share these sorts of personality traits. Like The Economist, I’d place him way up on the spectrum of creative people, which the leading psychologist of creativity describes this way.

I’ve been having a blast guest-blogging over at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish. If you haven’t seen it already, check out my fellow guest blogger Richard Posner’s latest post reacting to an e-mail from Alan Greenspan.

I’m part of the team filling in this week for the amazing Andrew Sullivan over at the Daily Dish at The Atlantic Online. Here’s what Andrew has to say:

I’m due for a break from the web for a week. Aides de blog Patrick Appel and Chris Bodenner will keep the Dish al dente in my absence. I’m working on an essay for the magazine and catching up on some reading – things I cannot seem to get done when I’m blogging twelve hours a day. Atlantic Correspondents Richard Posner, Richard Florida, and Lane Wallace have also agreed to contribute this coming week. Usually when I try to take a breather, some epic events occur – popes die, icons are shot, etc – so look busy.

I’m grateful to Andrew and my Atlantic online editor Bob Cohn for the opportunity, and humbled to be in such esteemed company. I want to thank my online CCE editor Elizabeth McGolerick and my MPI and CCG teams, especially Patrick Adler and Charlotta Mellander, for supporting my blogging.

Come visit here.

Creative Class Exchange will continue life as usual. My posts for the The Daily Dish and otherwise, along with my Twitter feed, will continue to appear here. And our other bloggers will be posting usual.

Andrew Sullivan points to Ed Glaeser’s Economix  post on the geography of unemployment and finds a common thread: “Edward Glaeser compares city to city unemployment numbers and affirms Richard Florida’s thesis.” Glaeser writes:

While the disparity in unemployment rates is enormous, it isn’t random. Some areas aren’t just miraculously better able to handle the downturn. Long-standing features of the urban landscape can explain the bulk of the variation in today’s unemployment rates.

Given the enormous gap in unemployment between skilled and unskilled workers, it isn’t surprising that skills best explain today’s metropolitan unemployment rates. The share of adults with college degrees in 2000 can, on its own, explain about one-half of the variation in the unemployment rate.Somewhat remarkably, the educational level of the metropolitan area before World War II can do almost as well.

Here’s his scatter-plot.

Source: Edward L. Glaeser, via Economix

Glaeser also finds that regional unemployment is “strongly linked to manufacturing.” Here’s his plot of the correlation between current unemployment and manufacturing’s share of the labor force in manufacturing in 1970.

Source: Edward L. Glaeser via Economix

Regional unemployment is also related to density, finding that “unemployment is lowest in those areas that are most centralized.” Sprawling places appear less resilient economically.

Source: Edward L. Glaeser via Economix

His conclusions: invest in skills and human capital; “beware industrial policies aimed at keeping America tied to heavy industry;” stop trying to breathe life back into declining regions; and encourage mobility.

While the regional diversity within the United States might prompt politicians to pursue policies that target aid to distressed regions, that seems likely to be counterproductive. America has always dealt with regional economic disparities through migration. … Today’s recession will also prompt mobility, probably toward more skilled, more centralized cities with less historical commitment to manufacturing.”

I could not agree more. Our urban policy, such that it is, is decidedly backward looking. It’s high time urban policy focus on leveraging the three key things – mobility, density, and human capital accumulation – that are real engines of prosperity.