Creative Class

So says New York Times’ David Brooks:

The 1980s and 1990s made up the era of the great dispersal. Forty-three million people moved every year, and basically they moved outward — from inner-ring suburbs to far-flung exurbs on the metro fringe … If you asked people in that age of go-go suburbia what they wanted in their new housing developments, they often said they wanted a golf course. But the culture has changed. If you ask people today what they want, they’re more likely to say coffee shops, hiking trails and community centers. People overshot the mark. They moved to the exurbs because they wanted space and order. But once there, they found that they were missing community and social bonds. So in the past years there has been a new trend. Meeting places are popping up across the suburban landscape.There are restaurant and entertainment zones, mixed-use streetscape malls, suburban theater districts, farmers’ markets and concert halls. In addition, downtown areas in places like Charlotte and Dallas are reviving as many people move back into the city in search of human contact…

Barack Obama has said that he would start an infrastructure project that will dwarf Dwight Eisenhower’s highway program. If, indeed, we are going to have a once-in-a-half-century infrastructure investment, it would be great if the program would build on today’s emerging patterns. It would be great if Obama’s spending, instead of just dissolving into the maw of construction, would actually encourage the clustering and leave a legacy that would be visible and beloved 50 years from now.

To take advantage of the growing desire for community, the Obama plan would have to do two things. First, it would have to create new transportation patterns. The old metro design was based on a hub-and-spoke system — a series of highways that converged on an urban core. But in an age of multiple downtown nodes and complicated travel routes, it’s better to have a complex web of roads and rail systems.

Second, the Obama stimulus plan could help localities create suburban town squares. Many communities are trying to build focal points. The stimulus plan could build charter schools, pre-K centers, national service centers and other such programs around new civic hubs… A stimulus package may be necessary, but unless designed with care, its main effect will be to prop up the drying husks of the fall.

More here.

With all the talk about Obama’s governing from Left, Right, or Center, I haven’t seen much talk about specifics. The leftish website “Politics Done Right” has an interesting chart and discussion of the policies on the President-elect’s website.

Most of this discussion, moreover, has dwelt in the realm of tactics, presentation and salesmanship rather than grand strategy…

In the case of Barack Obama, however, I would argue that there is not as much need to worry about tactics. If his campaign was any indication, Obama is not much of an outsourcer — he will dictate the tone of his administration. Moreover, we actually have quite a bit of information about what his longer-term goals are.

Lots of Creative Class economy stuff here – education, urban policy, research, infrastructure. While I’m pleased with the range and content of the proposals, I worry about the sheer numbers. What do you think?

Technology has enabled the newer mobile, flexible workplace that allows for better collaboration, faster decisions, and higher productivity.

The White House, as well as the U.S. government generally, over the past 8+ years has demonstrated an increasing performance deficit in these areas of collaboration, decision speed, and productivity, particularly when compared to private corporations, who have embraced new technologies and new workplaces.

Consider these three examples: FEMA’s inability to manage the crisis in New Orleans; the CIA and FBI and other agencies not being ready on September 11, 2001; and the clumsy response to the current economic challenges. Inquiries and reports related to these examples have revealed that various key people and agencies have lacked access to timely information or have been unable to collaborate quickly.

Then consider comparable private sector capacity: Wal-Mart is a world leader in logistics, infinitely superior to either FEMA or the military and indeed did end up helping out with post-Katrina needs. Within the Google servers is probably more information about what potential terrorists are up to than at the FBI or CIA.

For U.S. government agencies to catch up even modestly to the productivity and innovation capacity, a new approach to workplaces is likely needed.

It could start at the top. I would suspect that few Presidents of major, successful corporations don’t have a Blackberry or the equivalent.  Anyone who wants to have a laptop with high speed Internet access on their desk can have it. Denying this to Obama seems ridiculous –and if the President cannot decide this for himself, exactly who is in charge of the USA?

Security is a huge issue at every big company; this therefore does not seem like a good reason to tell Barack Obama he can’t have a Blackberry.  The White House should be able to employ top IT people to put in appropriate security measures.

One argument I’ve heard as to why he shouldn’t have one is that all of his correspondence becomes public record. But what does that have to do with the Blackberry?  In 2008, considerable official correspondence between all types of companies and organizations happens in e-mails. This is just 21st century workplace reality - the Office of the President needs to catch up. (I’m sure Obama knows what should and should not be said in e-mail messages!)  And, he could always decide to read only.

Electronic communication is a key part of dynamic workplaces today that enable better collaboration and higher productivity. It was key to how Obama mobilized a nation to become President-elect.  I would think that it will be key in the new White House — but it will be interesting to see what the Obama team decides to do.

This AP report is just sickening.

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama.” Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars. Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America. From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders. There have been “hundreds” of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

Michael Lind argues that the United States is embarking on its fourth great political (and economic) cycle (h/t Jerry Mayer).

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency may signal more than the end of an era of Republican presidential dominance and conservative ideology. It may mark the beginning of a Fourth Republic of the United States. In the past generation Bruce Ackerman, Theodore Lowi and I, in different ways, have used the idea of “republics” to understand American history… As I see it, to date there have been three American republics, each lasting 72 years (give or take a few years). The First Republic of the United States, assembled following the American Revolution, lasted from 1788 to 1860. The Second Republic, assembled following the Civil War and Reconstruction (that is, the Second American Revolution) lasted from 1860 to 1932. And the Third American Republic, assembled during the New Deal and the civil rights eras (the Third American Revolution), lasted from 1932 until 2004…

[W]hat causes these cycles of reform and backlash in American politics? I believe they are linked indirectly to stages of technological and economic development. Lincoln’s Second American Republic marked a transition from an agrarian economy to one based on the technologies of the first industrial revolution – coal-fired steam engines and railroads. Roosevelt’s Third American Republic was built with the tools of the second industrial revolution – electricity and internal combustion engines. It remains to be seen what energy sources – nuclear? Solar? Clean coal? – and what technologies – nanotechnology? Photonics? Biotech – will be the basis of the next American economy. (Note: I’m talking about the material, real-world manufacturing and utility economy, not the illusory “information economy” beloved of globalization enthusiasts in the 1990s, who pretended that deindustrialization by outsourcing was a higher state of industrialism.)

Naturally, the Americans alive during the founding of new American republics have other issues on their minds. The Civil War was fought over slavery, not steam engines, and the New Deal, for all of FDR’s commitment to nationwide electrical power fed by hydroelectric dam projects, was animated by a vision of social justice. The broad outlines of technological and economic change merely provide the frame for the picture; the details depend on the groups that emerge victorious in political battles.

That is why it is too early to predict the outline of the Fourth American Republic. Its shape depends on the outcomes of the debates and struggles of the next generation. But it is possible to speculate about its life span. If the pattern of history holds, the Fourth Republic of the United States will last for roughly 72 years, from 2004 (or, if you like, 2008) to 2076. And if the pattern of the past holds, we will see a period of Hamiltonian centralization and reform between now and 2040, followed by an approximately 36-year long Jeffersonian backlash motivated by ideals of libertarianism and decentralization.

And even if I am right that the new era began four years ago, historians are likely to identify the first president of the Fourth Republic of the United States as Barack Obama, not George W. Bush. Obama may join Washington, Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the short list of American presidents who, thanks both to their own leadership and the fortuitous timing of their elections, presided over the refounding of the United States. Yes, he can.

This is an intriguing formulation. But I think the breakpoints are confused and the time-lines or cycles longer. FDR’s time was one of a maturing and fairly well-understood period of industrial capitalism. While the Depression was deep and devastating, one could already see that demand stimulating via higher wages, infrastructure building, and home ownership were key building blocks for economic realignment and stimulation.

Today is much more like the mid-19th century and the time of Lincoln – the rise of a wholly new economic system and the large-scale class divides it produced. It is very difficult to even imagine the broad infrastructure or system architecture required to propel this emergent system of idea-driven, creative capitalism.

One thing is for certain: The old era will have to give way before the new era can take shape. The rise of industrial capitalism required a revolution in agricultural productivity and the mass shrinkage of farm-based employment. Remember Herbert Hoover’s mantra – “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” Food had to become cheap to free up consumption and demand for cars and industrial products. The revolution in agriculture freed up capital and labor that could be redeployed in then expanding industrial economy.  The rise of single-family home ownership and the auto-oriented suburb then closed the consumption circuit of Fordism.

Building the next economy and a new republic will require a similarly fundamental transformation of the core sectors of Fordism. This is more than creating new technology and building a new green infrastructure. We will need to massively shrink the cost for consumption of houses and cars.

The new system will be unable to emerge if people are spending the overwhelming amount of their incomes on housing (mortgages plus maintenance, utilities, taxes) and auto-expenses. To do so, we will need to make the housing system much more flexible, massively increase the productivity and efficiency of housing production (I’ll be writing more on this soon), and enable people to become far less dependent on cars. Only this kind of massive shift in the underlying architecture of society will free up sufficient income and demand for the next new things and enable us to begin to build the new infrastructure which can set innovation and economic growth on a new trajectory. Who in the Obama administration is even thinking along these lines?

The clock of history is always ticking. Eventually, the place or places that can set in motion this shift will accure first-mover advantages similar to those that the U.S. gained in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Can this happen in the U.S.? Can Obama help catalyze this broad shift, or are we still too early in the historical process? What about entrenched U.S. interests – the insitutional rigidities the late Mancur Olson wrote about – can they be overcome and recast? Washington remains locked in a conversation which entails propping up the Fordist economy – a housing finance bailout, an auto bailout, a homewner bailout – when instead what is needed is to free up capital from these sectors and massively redeploy it into others. And if not the U.S., where and when might this happen? How long will it take?

Say it ain’t so… please ,someone. Bloomberg is reporting.

President-elect Barack Obama is pushing Congress this year to approve as much as $50 billion to save cash-starved U.S. automakers and appoint a czar or board to oversee the companies, a move that would require President George W. Bush’s support, people familiar with the matter said. Obama’s economic advisers are now convinced that if General Motors Corp. doesn’t get a financial lifeline soon, it will have to file for bankruptcy by the end of January. And if the companies don’t get almost $50 billion, Obama will be dealing with the issue again by next summer. Any czar or board would be patterned after the bailout of Chrysler in 1979 and New York City in 1975. Advisers such as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers are said to be telling Obama that the cash is urgently needed now.

Congress would have to act in a lame-duck session that begins next week. Obama would need Bush’s backing to pass such a sweeping and costly measure in part because Democrats don’t have enough votes to force a floor vote or override a veto. Obama also would need strong support from auto-producing states such as Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin to pass such a sweeping and costly measure. Yet to be determined is whether most of the money would be drawn from the $700 billion financial rescue package Congress passed last month or from newly allocated funds.

By injecting himself into the talks about how to save General Motors, Obama is making an exception to his decision to steer clear of policy-making until he takes office. The president-elect also wants the Federal Reserve to extend emergency loans to General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, according to Obama aides who spoke on condition of anonymity. The failure of those companies would likely bring down parts-makers, dealerships and suppliers in addition to inflicting a deep psychological blow.

Is this really true? A multi-billion dollar bailout for the Big Three whose management has systematically squandered away a huge post-war economic and technological advantage, have misunderstood their markets, who have blamed workers every chance they get, and who failed to learn from their rivals and refuse to harness the creative capabilities of workers. An auto czar – huh? I thought Obama was elected by a combination of African-Americans and the creative class. How does this square with his electoral coalition or his vision of a better future? This will just forestall the inevitable. Why not just allow them to be taken over by Japanese car companies like Toyota and Honda who could truly restructure them? For the life of me and the good of the country, I hope this report is wrong.

Mark Cuban, over at the Huff Post, takes Obama to task on his old guard economic team:

It’s great to see President-elect Obama aggressively taking on the economy prior to his taking office. Unfortunately, the economic advisory team that he has put together looks more like a semester’s worth of great guest speakers for an MBA class than an economic advisory team that can truly help him… Notice anything missing?  Not a single entrepreneur.

The Washington Post is reporting that Obama appears to be committed to creating a new White House Office of Urban Policy. Let’s hope it’s one that recognizes urban policy as a key element of innovation, economic growth, and competitiveness as well as poverty mitigation.

Your thoughts on what a new urban policy should look like?

Rapidly improving and expanding network computer technology is a key reason why workplaces today are shifting fast toward more mobile and flexible environments. Reflecting upon events of the past week, I think there is another massive revolution in workplaces still to come.

The Obama campaign demonstrated the potential of computer-facilitated personal networks to bring about change. Through Facebook and MySpace, along with websites like YouTube, supporters connected with independents and people who were potential supporters, creating a viral-like marketing campaign. People found numerous different ways to connect and spread a message. Obama rode this 21st-century communications revolution to victory – it was not a machine to build and control, but rather energy and ideas to harness.

As corporations relax their rules about “who can be doing what on their work machine when,” a new generation might just use the myriad communications options available to do something fantastic. When corporations “let go” they might find they can hitch themselves to something amazing.

Imagine a global corporation – maybe a software company or an accounting-consulting firm – in which people at all levels and positions could interconnect and network together, and then solve problems together. A company with an internal intranet containing an internal Facebook, blogs, work logs, etc. fully searchable by anyone else in the company. Perhaps employees anywhere in the world could connect in any way they needed to: video conference instantly from their laptops, or leave video messages for each other.

If all the talent in the company could connect easily, that could bring enormous innovation acceleration. Problem solving could be far more efficient. Maybe David in the office in Singapore has already solved a problem now facing new person Carly in the office in Boston? What if Carly could type in a few key words and learn that David dealt with the same issues last month?

While I’ve heard of companies trying to better connect their workforces through intranet applications, I haven’t heard of too many turning all or most of the process over to all employees, especially the younger generation (but please comment and tell me who is doing this if you know).

The first company that achieves this extreme interconnectivity would instantly have tremendous leverage against competitors from an enormous boost in productivity and innovation.

Obama was the first major politician to grasp the potential, and harness the power, of youth and technology – and just look at how far ahead it put him. He left the best late-20th century political machine in the dust (the Clinton camp) and made McCain look like a relic of the 1950s.