Beyond the Valley of the Creative Class

After a false start, I have finished reading Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class. Despite my earlier misgivings, I found that Florida places his creative class in the vanguard of the creativity-driven changes in our lives and economy, not as a static uber-class of hipsters shipped in to make backwater polities more attractive.

He writes:

Some people find the very notion of the Creative Class elitist. But the existence of a large and growing new class of highly paid creative workers is not the problem; in fact, I submit it is a healthy sign. 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. Keeping creativity as the province of the select few is a real prescription for trouble of all sorts, from injustice to inefficiency.

This social order is precisely what persists in Memphis. And, ironically, this order champions the Creative Class for these very exclusivist reasons. We have the inequity, inefficiency, trouble and danger to prove it.

We should stop talking about the Creative Class. Around here there's a 90% chance that any enthusiastic mention is a gilding of the same old shit. I blame the word "class."

Instead let's make Memphis a democratically creative city. If Florida is right, the Creative Class will be there, but so will the rest of us.

Coalition for a Leadbeater Memphis

I think at the moment the traditional [philosophy], by which I mean over the last 10 years, [is] heavily influenced by Richard Florida's work. The implication is that if you can attract cultural and creative talent, that can sometimes create the environment in which other knowledge workers and services, business services and others, like to congregate, and then you've got the core of a kind of knowledge economy in a city and that then creates jobs in personal services and so on and so forth.

The truth is, for me, that is too narrow and can be too elitist a view of what really generates a really successful city. And I think the really successful cities are marked by the way they engage everyone and their sense of talent is a talent for doing things that are local, or doing things with kids, or a talent in care services. You can imagine talent being a much more broadly spread kind of capacity. Rather than looking for a savior class to come along and save the city.

Actually the most successful cities, I think Portland is a really good example in the United States, Curitiba in Brazil is another very good example, where you get this mass welling up of creativity from all sorts of sources, not just from a single source. And so as a result these cities are more adaptive, they're stronger, and they've got a broadly spread kind of engagement that is constantly stimulating.

Charles Leadbeater,
speaking with Carol Coletta
on Smart City Radio about
the philosophy of talent and cities.

Richard Florida and The Rise of the Robots

I haven't read the book either. Or more accurately, I haven't finished it. I would have, one day, if I hadn't lost it. That's right; the only library book I've ever lost was Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class".

I got about 1/3 of the way through before it disappeared. I think I'm not going to comment about it directly because of that. But I do want to make a general comment about the phenomenon incubating around it.

It doesn't bother me. As long as we don't use it to replace an old caste system with a hip new caste system -- California and Austin Uber Alles. As long as we don't create a system that rebrands maids as nannies and thinks it's progress.

So if I have a problem with the phenomenon it's the "class" part and not the "creative" part. Everyone should be creative, not just a class.

I wasn't far enough in to know if he's describing a class or prescribing/exalting that class. If the former, I don't have a problem at all. If the latter, it depends on how it's prescribed. There are very few people in this world that we can't learn something from so I'm ready to learn from any successes any group has had. But if it crosses over from "hey, great idea" to "why can't we be more like them? What's wrong with us? We suck!" or "STFU! The creative person's talking," then it's unhealthy.

Why should everyone be creative? Because the robots are coming. We will automate more and more and more of our repetitious tasks. If you work in a job where the creative class tells you to get back to work, they've got the creative part covered, then it won't be long before the Terminator is making copies or loading planes where you used to stand.

Now is the time to be creative.

Later is the time to finish the book and see what I think.