Letters to the Editor
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I'm Confused....
Since when did beetles or butterflies become arachnids?
That aside, this was an interesting article.
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Ironically I'm working on a book myself . . .
I'm involved in a career guide project now. Florida's Creative Class ideas are useful, but I think he's far too abstract from what he's dealing with, and the map has become the territory.
There's just no way to boil down the "creative class" issues easily because the "creative class" is very general itself. The individual parts of the creative class have, despite their similarities, different needs and concerns. Worse, these needs and concerns change, so it's hard to generalize.
I'm a programmer who became a project manager. 13 year IT career. I started out in middle America and am now in California because the coasts are generally where jobs (and interests) are for me. What fit me ten years ago doesn't fit now.
I give Florida props for useful concepts, but it sounds like he's stuck being conceptual, and he's now down here in the real world of the people he's writing about.
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WHERE'S OHIO?
I have been looking for Ohio for a long time now and cannot seem to find it any place. It seems once the Republicans took over the state quite awhile back, they moved it some place between Mississippi and Alabama and now I cannot find it. Our new Governor, Democrat Ted Strickland, is hauling it back up Interstate 65. It'll be awhile.
Did Mr. Florida stumble across Ohio while he was out looking for the creative class? Oh yeah, now I get it. That's the part of Ohio where the gays moved in and bought up the properties real cheap, redid the walls with some faux something-or-other but never mauve, jerked up the asking prices of the homes, and made themselves wealthy while pretending we all just needed more "creativity." No one can afford the houses in the neighborhood anymore. Some "For Sale" signs have been up for over 2 years.
The new so-called Creative Class looks to me like a variation on theme that is as old as America itself: People who want to make money will flock together wherever they need to flock.
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WE DON'T HAVE BOHEMIANS IN OHIO
The Republican-controlled state legislature passed a law that made them all leave the state and not come back. It was the "
No Creativity Allowed" law, or also called, "Stifle That Giggle, Mister" law.
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@Abbybwood
Huh? You're moving to The Hamptons? After all the qualities you just listed of things you're looking for, you think the Hamptons will provide them?
News flash: The Hamptons is nothing more than the "country" playground of the legions of wealthy, snobbish, smug assholes who inhabit NYC. Good luck.
Madison, Wisconsin fits your criteria to a T, other than the winter part. There are other similar options around...but good Gawd, The Hamptons???!
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@kb75
Wow, sounds great. Would that it were so easy to just pick up and move to Western Europe and find good work and an affordable place to live, and be allowed to stay legally! Maybe 10%, max, of the American population has that option. Maybe.
My very well-educated and professionally successful cousin recently moved back to the States from Britain, where she was sick of dealing with all the red tape and hassles (and ridiculous expense) of living and working, and she's married to a Brit. Politics aside (they're both left-liberals), they're much happier and more satisfied back in the US, have more disposable income, better living space, etc. They're thrilled because they can actually OWN a place to live here, her husband has been able to find decent work (something he struggled with in the UK), and they can go places and do fun things now (something their limited incomes and high cost of living hampered in Britain.) And they're not even in one of the "spikey" zones of the US!
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It is not necessary to be an Urbanite
I onced lived for many years in Aspen Colorado, before the Jets came and the beautiful people left. It was full of interesting, creative, and athletic individuals..people who also appreciated and challenged themselves with the rugged physical world. Further, to be part of a creative class and also part of a great city may make one provincial in the assumption that in a city exist the forces required for creativity. Rather creativity is more likely noticed by those who get together in a city thinking they are creative. Like all that literature that only makes it once Oprah says it's worth while.
A recent example might be Steinbeck's East of Eden, which published in the fifties, shot to the top of the charts once again after that 'queen of literature' Oprah proclaimed it worthy.
ps. I live in the woods, so what do I know?
www.deeplyimbedded.com
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creatives
Why do most of the "creative" people I meet these days strike me as being so dull? I am tired of their loony ideas and their devotion to money, frankly.
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Florida on "Mating Markets"
In all fairness to Mr. Florida, the discipline of economics in general ickily refers to "mating markets."
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Arachnids
Arachnids are spiders and other eight-legged invertebrates. Arachnids are not insects. Both arachnids and insects are major players in every ecosystem they inhabit (which is every ecosystem). So not only is the lede wrong, the metaphor is inapt. Doesn't Salon have editors anymore? Or writers who made it through sixth grade Earth Science?
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Graph from the Atlantic
I saw an excellent graph in the Atlantic magazine within the last year, and if anybody could point me to an online copy I'd be much obliged. I've looked and not found.
Anyhow, the graph showed the US, broken down by county, in 1950 and 2000. Each county is color coded, and the color indicates the % of college graduates in the county, relative to the national average. If a county has less grads than the national average, it was colored lighter, and the reverse for being above average.
Comparing the 2 years was stunning. In 1950, there was a loose clustering of grads around cities, but plenty of mid-colored areas thru the middle of the country. In 2000, the map had changed to bright pockets of grads around urban centers, and a pale desert across large sections of the country. A few spots stood out in the middle, like Missoula MT, or Los Alamos NM (remember its relative to national average, not absolute number), but even with the exceptions the change was striking.