Julie's Notes on Richard Florida's THE CREATIVE CLASS part 2

Florida breaks down the fundamentals of what makes a city creative with the three T's: Technology, Talent, and Tolerance. A great example of a creative city is San Francisco, especially Silicon Valley. There are other examples such as Portland, OR and Boston, MA and Austin, TX.

Former mayor of Austin, Kirk Watson, speaks about the three T's in action in the creative Texan hot spot: "Austin has benefited from a convergence between technology and our laid-back, progressive, creative, lifestyle and music scene. The key is that we continue to preserve the lifestyle and diversity, which enables us to lure companies and people from places like Silicon Valley." Florida explains further that, "Austin sees itself as a wholly creative place, as opposed to just a high-tech city--one that has worked hard to build the kind of habitat to which creative people of all types are attracted" (p 299). The technology is very present in Austin with huge names like IBM, Intel, and Motorola. The talent is always flocking to the city with these companies recruiting top-notch students from schools like MIT, University of Texas, and Carnegie Mellon. The tolerance of Austin is noticeable because the city is incredibly open to immigration, alternative lifestyles, and many genres of music and entertainment. The city's government seems to really advocate each individual expressing himself and herself as they are.

The strategies to maintain the city's appeal are protecting cultural venues from displacement, maintaining traditional ethnic neighborhoods, and inspiring a tolerant attitude among the community. These seem somewhat vague to me, so for more concrete examples let us look at what Dublin began in the 1960's. Ireland's city thrived until the recent recession because the Irish government supported the formation of technical skills in electronics and computer disciplines along with the restoration its Temple Bar district, and the recruitment of creative people. The recruitment is very interesting because the city invited technology companies, entrepreneurs, actors, writers, musicians to come live in Dublin and the city would offer tax breaks!

Florida tactfully brings up a point about these cities overwhelmed with creativity; often in environments where there are so many strong-willed and creative minds there is little room for others who are meek artists or people who are more family-driven and less interested in the career world. He says that sometimes these places develop an elitist attitude or a reputation for being exclusive. But he quickly scraps this judgement and says: "What is elitist--and inequitable, inefficient and even dangerous--is the persistence of a social order in which some people are considered natural creators, while others exist to serve them, carry out their ideas and tend to their personal needs" (p 323). He says we need class awareness. Everyone is needed and valuable in a society be she a mother, be he a mechanic, be he a hair stylist, be she a CEO of Amazon.com; all are contributors in some way.