Creative Class

Bill Gates says U.S. schools are “broken.” Alvin Toffler calls them relics of a by-gone industrial age. Now, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers, 1 in 10 American high-schools is a “drop out factory,” where 60 percent of freshman do not even make it to their senior year. What a colossal waste of human talent. The U.S. has been living off the educational investments of other countries, particularly China and India, for the past several decades.  What happens if the supply of foreign talent dries up or decides to head elsewhere?

Max Levchin is the 32 year old founder of PayPal which made him rich. He’s bored, so he’s launching a new company at age 32.  He’s a serial entrepreneur, like many in the San Francisco Bay area.  This New York Times story provides a nice profile, quoting Stanford’s Bob Sutton: “In other parts of the country, things like a great estate are the symbols people most respect. But here the greatest status symbol is a person’s ability … to still bring out new hot new companies … working on hot new technologies.”  It’s a fascinating tale.

The key point, which the article breezes past, is this: He’s an immigrant – born Maximilian Rafael Levchin in Kiev, Ukraine. His family migrated to  Chicago when he was 16 years of age.  And when immigration restrictions were far less stringent.  Maybe the Levchin’s would be admitted to the United States today.  But with stricter immigration controls, then again maybe not.  And the real question is How many more families like Max Levchin’s are making decisions on where to migrate to today?  How many will choose locations like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom or elsewhere around the world?  We’ll know the answers in another 16 years.  That’s when the seeds of these location decisions will be harvested.

No one can say for sure where the PenPal’s, Google’s, and E-bay’s of the world will crop up in the year 2025 or 2030. But there’s one thing I’d bet on: Because of immigration restrictions. many many more will end up outside the U.S. – that’s where the “human seeds” of those innovations are planting themselves today.

Readers from Toronto, D.C., and the world’s mega-cities may not know that name, but Pittsburghers will.  Mark is an old friend who left a promising career in D.C. to return to Pittsburgh and help foster change in the late 1990s.  Now he’s running for Pittsburgh’s mayor as a Republican.  And the Pittsburgh Post Gazette just endorsed him (h/t Camille Dvorsky).

As a self-proclaimed nonpolitician, he is refreshing and even chafes
at the notion that mayoral politics expects him to “pound my chest and
say I’m great.” That’s not him, he said. “I’ll tell you what I don’t
know.” Yet, in reality, there’s not much he doesn’t know. One thing we do know is the Republican, this year, can win. With
$285,000 raised in cash and in-kind contributions, more than any recent
mayoral candidate from his party, the DeSantis challenge has a shot. If the number of Post-Gazette readers reading this editorial agree
he should win, then he will win. These readers, these voters, have that
kind of power, even though some of them may have voted for few or no
Republicans in the past. Other “Democratic” cities, after all, have had
successful Republican mayors — New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, to
name a few. In Pittsburgh, plenty of disaffected Democrats and others
have been waiting for a credible candidate to return two-party
democracy, debate and decision-making to the city. That would be the first big change under Mark DeSantis. For Pittsburgh, it should be the start of many more.

Amen.

Very interesting interview with sociologist and global cities guru, Saskia Sassen.

[G]entrification is not a new phenomenon. Some would argue it is the result
of capitalism’s “creative destruction”.  …It makes the urban
economy dynamic, it beautifies the city, brings in state-of-the-art
infrastructure. … But this is an economic dynamism that has a nasty habit of hiding its costs.
You do not see all the displaced little shops and people, the disruption, and
often, destruction of livelihoods that this brings with it. Finally, the state-of-the-art glamour zone makes everything else look rundown and unattractive. It devalues the rest of the city. Yet much of the urbanity of a city comes from the older, messier areas. In the new glamour zones, you won’t
see street life, the mixing of differences and people who are not there just to
take an elevator up to the 102nd floor.

The full interview is here (h/T: Ken McGuffin).

Wendy Waters, one of the absolutely top urban bloggers around, offers some interesting observations on mine.

As I’m sure Florida would agree, all of his praise is not to say
Toronto does not have challenges and problems. But, some of these are
issues other cities would love to have: transit is too popular and
therefore crowded; too many people want to live in the area, driving up
housing prices and creating the need for more infrastructure, etc. And
other challenges are somewhat universal, or at least North-America wide
in their occurrence such as crime, homelessness, etc.

One possible reason Torontonians think less highly of their city is
that within Canada, it is currently often compared to Calgary and
Vancouver, which are doing better financially right now because of the
global oil and resource prices around which those cities’ economies are
partially based. Also, Vancouver has attracted more world attention and
accolades from being named to host the Olympics, to being labeled among
the world’s most liveable cities by organizations such as The Economist
and Mercer Consulting. But there is a downside to the constant rosy
picture of Vancouver painted by outsiders. Vancouver’s writers politicians and other business and civic leaders have tended to believe the international press as well as their own
economic development marketing promotions, allowing them to ignore some of the real problems the city has (which, are not that different than other cities’ problems, but need attention nonetheless) such as crime, homelessness, and drug addiction.

Hopefully, Toronto’s economic and social leaders will use Florida’s
comments to take the gloomy blinders off and celebrate what the city
does well (and try to ensure this will continue). But the danger is
then dawning rose coloured glasses and not addressing the challenges
the city faces if it is to continue to be a key.

Actually, Wendy, I could not agree more!

And everyone else out there, Wendy’s blog All About Cities is a must-read if you care about cities and urban trends.

Here’s a comment just in from a Swedish colleague who’s familiar with Toronto and Washington, D.C.

The best way of learning about the way people perceive their cities is to talk to – taxi drivers. Those are the ones with all the info.  When I asked taxi drivers in DC what they thought of the US almost all of them said – “the US is great, if it wasn’t that people are working so hard,” adding how many hours per week they were working themselves. I asked taxi
drivers in Toronto the same thing – and they said: “Canada is great. If
I work hard I can have a decent standard of living”. On the plane back from Toronto, I was squeezed in between two giant men, both with strong eastern European accents. I thought they knew each other, but one was of Polish origin the other one from Russia. We talking and I asked them how long I’d been in Toronto. Both of them laughed and said they were FROM Toronto, not from Poland or Russia. They considered themselves Canadian. Both of them praised Canada, saying this was a country that would promote you for your hard work and a great place to
raise your kids. The Polish man had his son with him and they were going back
to Poland to meet with relatives). So over and over again I got this
message – Canada is good to you if you work hard, whereas the  US message has
always been “US is good for you BUT you have to work hard”…There’s a fine
line between the two, but it was so very noticeable to me during this very
short stay.” I think you’ve got it right — and sometimes it takes
someone from outside to notice.

Amazing how much one can learn from a single column and subsequent exchange around the blog-sphere.

Lots of comments on the column around the blogosphere. Here’s a quick sampling.

Dan at More Notes from the Underground writes: “[I]t’s obvious that he hasn’t been in
Toronto long. Why? He’s optimistic about this place in a way that we
longer-term Torontonians do not permit ourselves to be in many ways. Is
this because we’ve been let down by our city’s inability to get
top-flight events (Olympics, Expos) that other, smaller Canadian cities
can attract? I don’t know, but we’ve taken to shrugging about this
place too much.”

We Eat Toronto says that I: “mentioned having the uber-Toronto peameal
and egg sandwich at the St. Lawerence market so that planted the idea
in my mind. We spied the shop hawking these sandwiches while at the
market so we couldn’t resist. 4.95 with tax so certainly not cheap
(maybe that helps make it authentically Toronto-ish?). It was pretty
good. Just like the Tim Horton’s egg mcmuffin is a better version of
the original McMuffin, this sandwich was better than the TH edition.
However, the bacon wasn’t as flavourful as it could be. No other
complaints except obviously the price.”

Randy McDonald adds: “It’s interesting to see that Toronto’s hinterland really might extend
that far beyond Toronto proper, beyond even Canada’s borders. Since at
least the 1960s, Canadian journalists, sociologists, and others have
been writing about the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor,
a concentration of population, industry, and wealth that stretches from
Windsor, Ontario in the southwest (just next to Detroit) northeast
towardS Québec City, and has Toronto very nearly dead-centre, with its
importance rising since then with Montréal’s relative decline. More
recently than that, at least as earlier as my brief 2005 observation
about the decline of the American cities of Detroit and Buffalo
relative to Toronto, others have been suggesting that these and other
cities might try to recover by linking with a luckier Toronto. I only
hope that Toronto’s up to the challenge.”

CanCult on “The Rise of the Toronto Class” – gotta love that headline: “Toronto has an inferiority complex?”

Great to see folks reading and commenting on the column. Keep ‘em coming!

The first installment is here.

Clunky sounding or not, mega-regions are the real
economic engines of the global economy. The 10 largest account for 43 per cent
of the planet’s economic activity and more than half of its patented innovations
and star scientists who generate pioneering breakthroughs, while housing only
6.5 per cent of its population. The top 40 produce 66 per cent of the world’s
economic activity and more than eight in 10 of its patented innovations and
most-cited scientists, while being home to just 18 per cent of the world’s
population. All of this convinces me that place, not statehood, is
the central axis of our time and of our global economy.

There’s a nice story by Globe and Mail editor, Edward Greenspon, here.

Today is the hard launch and Exhibit A in what one of my
predecessors used to call editorial refreshments is Dr. Richard
Florida, one of the world’s leading scholars on the relationship
between economic and social progress and the critical role of the
creative classes. Richard, long an attentive student of this country,
chose earlier this summer to move his research team and family to
Canada from the United States. He is itching to become part of our
national conversation and we are delighted to make The Globe and Mail
his venue.

Richard is an inveterate blogger and his musings will appear on
globeandmail.com. You can find it today just under the headlines of our
home page. He will also write a monthly column in the Focus section and
a separate monthly reflection on his new hometown in the revamped and
rechristened Globe T.O. section. Today, he pronounces on the deeper
meaning of the relationship between the Buffalo Bills and Toronto.

Obviously, we live in times that are both faster moving and more
complex. We all share the frustration of being overloaded with
information but still missing understanding. Recruiting Richard to
write for The Globe is part of a broader effort to bring more context
and meaning to the world around us.

Thanks for the kind words, Ed. It’s a true pleasure to be on board.

There’s a story on our “social life” in Toronto, here.

The blog is over at the Globe and Mail, here.

Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser has a new piece in the City Journal on Buffalo’s prospects (h/t: Alison Kemper). His  answer: “Probably not—and government should stop bribing
people to stay there.“ Whoa – talk about tough love. He continues:

The truth is, the federal government has already spent vast sums of taxpayer
money over the past half-century to revitalize Buffalo, only to watch the city
continue to decay. Future federal spending that tries to revive the city will
likely prove equally futile. The federal government should instead pursue
policies that help Buffalo’s citizens, not the city as a geographical place.
State and local policymakers could take steps that might—might—help Buffalo
stave off its demise, if they avoid the errors of the past. …

As for state and local politicians, reducing New York’s unnecessary taxes and
regulation would be a good idea, since if Buffalo is ever to rebound, even
somewhat, private innovators, not government projects, will be the primary
reason. Better schools and safe streets would also be key to improving Buffalo’s
chances of survival. Yet though such policies would improve things, they would
not restore the boomtown of the early twentieth century; the economic trends
working against such a prospect are simply too great. The best scenario would be
for Buffalo to become a much smaller but more vibrant community—shrinking to
greatness, in effect. Far better that outcome than wasting yet more effort and
resources on the foolish project of restoring the City of Light’s past
glory.

I’m realistically optimistic. The key to Buffalo’s future lies less in U.S. policy and more on the dynamic economy here on the Canadian side of the border. The Tor-Buff-Chester mega-region is Buffalo’s greatest hope. It’s in the interest of Buffalo and New York policy-makers – including the current front-runners in both parties – to make sure that border works effectively. Another key is establishing better transit links to Toronto. Another thing that Buffalo and Rochester have to offer is world-class health-care, that could potentially serve the mega-region. The key is to think and plan across borders  – in terms of the mega. Our mega is a growth magnet and that growth can spill-across to Buffalo and upstate New York. It doesn’t necessarily have to, but with the proper framework and actions, it could.

We’ve entered into a cool new partnership with the Globe and Mail. I’ll do a regular column and more. Here’s the announcement that’s been running in the paper the past couple days – which literally bowled me over. The first column runs this Saturday. I’ll also do a special series where I visit great neighborhoods and spots in and around Toronto. We’ll be taking write-in nominations for places to visit.  This blog will be picked up on globeandmail.com giving us an audience of 5 million per month! More to come soon.

Update: The Globe and Mail’s press release after the jump (courtesy of Ken McGuffin).

TORONTO, Oct. 26 /CNW/ – Renowned economist and researcher

Richard Florida will be a regular contributor to The Globe and Mail with his first column appearing this Saturday, October 27. Florida will have a monthly column in the newspaper, participate in a special series called “Richard Florida visits” in which he’ll explore iconic neighbourhoods and events in Toronto, and his blog “Creative Class” will appear exclusively in Canada on www.globeandmail.com/blogs/creativeclass  Florida is particularly known for his theory of the “creative class” and its impact on urban development. He recently moved to Canada from the United States to become a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Academic Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School.

“I have been interested in Richard Florida’s ideas for years. They have transformed our understanding of economic and social relations within urban settings. His regular contributions to The Globe and Mail and globeandmail.com will help spread his creative thinking to a broader audience,” said Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-Chief, The Globe and Mail.

About The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, is a division of CTVglobemedia, a dynamic multi-media company, which also owns CTV Inc., Canada’s number-one private broadcaster.

For further information: Niya Nikitova: (416) 969-2654 or nnikitova@environicspr.com