Richard Florida is half right: attracting more of the creative class is crucial, but let’s not forget its founding members

by Kathleen Martin

Richard Florida, a professor at the Rotman School of Management, is an expert in regional economic development. He is also nothing short of a rock star. His speaking fee firmly within the five-figure range, Florida commands sold-out audiences around the world. Tanned and polished, he strides across the stage, modulates his voice, and performs with the flair of a skilled evangelist. His message: Places that attract the most creative people will dominate the new global economy. Places that don’t will wither.

Florida recently spoke in Saint John at the R3 Gala, a celebration of research achievement organized by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation. He is largely responsible for drawing broad attention to the importance of creativity as a primary economic driver. He coined the term “creative class” to describe the kind of people cities and countries should attract. By his definition creatives include research scientists, engineers, managers, lawyers, and entrepreneurs, as well as artists, writers, and musicians.

No longer tied to a single job for life, the creative class is mobile, searching for the right place to live. In our chat, and in his writings, he describes the qualities of the “right” place, which include an “open culture which does not discriminate, does not force people into ‘boxes,’ allows them to be themselves and to validate their varied identities; [that] unleashes human creative potential, and in doing so spurs innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development.”

In addition to such infrastructure staples as a solid technology base and universities, regions can unleash this creative potential with the proper amenities, including a good inventory of such things as loft apartments, bike paths, live music, and interesting festivals. Cities need to have “buzz.”

Florida suggests any place can do this, and cities and states are trying, often hiring Florida’s consulting firm, the Creative Class Group, to show them the way.

Part of me stand ups and applauds. Thank God he’s managed to draw attention to the role of creativity and the arts to the economy. Finally, arguments that cultural groups have made for decades as they struggle to keep arts funding on the political agenda, are garnering attention. “Art,” says New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, “brings in millions and millions of dollars to any city. It transforms whole neighbourhoods.”

But another part of me is stopped cold. No matter the buzz-worthy appeal of trendy, gentrified urban centres complete with revitalized architecture, Ultimate Frisbee, public art, and quirky coffee shops, there is more to this picture, which University of Wisconsin at Madison professor Jamie Peck decries as “cappuccino urban politics, with plenty of froth.” Florida’s theory, argues Peck, wallpapers over the gritty entrenched issues directly affecting those who are not members of the creative class—issues such as urban inequality and working poverty.

As Mayor Bloomberg also notes, “One of the great challenges we have is to bring artists into communities that are down on their heels and have the artists transform the communities…(but then) how do you keep it so the artists are able to live there as the neighbourhoods become magnets and more and more people want to move in and drive out the starving artists?”

Richard Florida may champion the economic spinoffs of culture, but his theory doesn’t champion artists themselves. The reality is artists rarely earn a living wage. Their creativity, which changes the landscape of our places and minds, may attract Florida’s creative class, but the artists themselves cannot afford the lifestyle such prosperity inspires. The same goes for the poor in our midst. And it is often their authentic neighbourhoods that are encroached upon in the search for edgy urban identities.

There are many answers to Bloomberg’s question, but we must be creative. In Atlantic Canada, where we see things differently, we have the chance to  not take the easy way out. We have the chance to take the meat of Florida’s argument—creativity as economic driver—and to use our unique boundless supply of it to figure out how to capitalize on opportunities without compromising values. We have the chance to determined that we won’t be sidetracked by froth.

Kathleen Martin is a freelance journalist based in Halifax. She can be reached at masthead@ns.sympatico.ca.