Reese, Laura A. and Gary Sands. (2007, February). Creative Class and Economic Prosperity: Old Nostrums, Better Packaging? Economic Development Quarterly, 22(1), 3-7. [creative.pdf]
The February edition of Economic Development Quarterly features a symposium to address Richard Florida’s 2002 Creative Class hypothesis, which posits that “attracting and retaining members of the creative class” is a pivotal element in creating economically healthy communities (4). Laura Reese and Gary Sands open the symposium with this paper, an abstract discussing the general merits of Florida’s thesis and the conclusions of the symposium. A look at this paper’s title should lend clue to the final thoughts on the matter: ‘old nostrums, better packaging.’ In particular, the authors decry the ambiguity of Florida’s so-called ‘creative class,’ nomenclature which the symposium measures as being as high as 50% of the population. As is said, “if the creative class is everything, maybe it is nothing.” More elucidating is the way each symposium paper picks apart the particulars of his premise like crossing off items from a ledger: casual logic between ‘creative class’ and economic development? Not really. Creative class as a categorical definition? Not so. Correlations between Florida’s demographic and mitigated income inequality? Sorry. And thus, the symposium outcome doesn’t look good for Florida.
Still, the symposium’s analysis presents its own problems. While Florida’s attempt to compartmentalize human capital-driven economic growth in an identifiable demographic might not have succeeded, neither are his labors uninstructive. The outright rejection by Reese, et al. does little service to the discipline beyond dismembering what they perceive to be a ‘fad,’ though there is little discourse on the powerful commotion the creative class hypothesis continues to generate. The symposium rightly points out the many shortcomings of the premise, but fail to mention its compelling nature as an early attempt to define contemporary urban economics – what many can agree is knowledge-based without being able to discern its tangible subsystems – which is an inherently difficult enterprise.
At the heart of symposium’s creative class problem is its chicken-and-egg conundrum: does the existence of high human capital (or creative class, or however one defines it) generate the commerce/cultural landscape to create and sustain economic growth, or does a well-functioning commercial area with a strong cultural landscape draw the human capital? Which comes first?
This is a question that is owed volumes, but the haphazard realities of economic development [see:Rubin, H.J. (1988) Shoot Anything that Flies, Claim Anything that Falls: Conversations with Economic Development Practitioners, Economic Development Quarterly, 2(3), 236-251.] mean that practitioners are facing this very question today, on the ground. While no economic development methodology is monolithic, and certainly not perfectly scalable as the contextual terrain changes, the practice is not served by unrelenting sentiments of indifferent despair towards creating a unified rubric.
I welcome Florida’s thesis. For that matter, I also find the symposium’s findings quite useful, but it’s past time devoting entire journal issues to why something isn’t; in ever-fluctuating economy of the present, gleaning the functioning mechanics of the knowledge economy’s sorcery is more important than ever.
For my part, I cannot begin to offer even the rudiments of notation to deduce the myriad complexities of contemporary urban economics, but I can say this – it stands to reason that the chicken-egg dilemma of human capital is likely a mirage. If the experience of deindustrialization lends any clue, the confluence of capital and culture does not itself create the creative class nor necessarily retain them. Deindustrialization’s chief legacy – capital flight – occurred not because the cities were themselves too ‘unhip’ or lacked capital in the first place (hence the term), but because settlement patterns based on shifting cultural norms did not favor the city. As labor left – so went capital, commerce, and then ‘creative culture.’ The predominant urban land-use configuration of sprawl reminds us that human capital is not an overwhelmingly downtown affair, and that general urban economic health will not necessarily improve with marginal infill physical improvements (downtown malls and stadia) or investing in institutions to train high-skilled workers that will leave for greener pastures (how many Rutgers-Camden students stay in Camden?). Rather, it is the proven policies that promote growth – that attract capital investment – that will create jobs to fill out Florida’s desired creative space and diverse population (strongly correlated to high-income regions). Workforce development is a worthy investment, but will only yield observable results if the public policy platform is sound; in its absence, human capital might only be retained by targeted, fitful means.
