(from a posting I made to the Sirolli Institute Public Forum on April 21, 2007, which generated a little bit of a buzz)
….I apologize in advance for the length of this rant, but here goes..
The coveted Creative Class referred to by Florida, is that ‘class’ of knowledge worker whose earnings are large and whose skills are portable – we want them to settle in OUR city to dispose of those earnings. The desire is not for creative people, per se, but for access to the cash flow of those who are currently the economic stars.
As someone who has worked with over 2,000 artists and culture workers since 1995, I can tell you that quality creative human capital is already here. Where I live, in Vancouver, the place is crawling with it. Unfortunately, despite the wide-eyed enthusiasm on the part of many arts mavens and business leaders for the concept of the Creative Class and the Knowledge Economy, the paradigm is far from shifted. Nobody seems to ‘get’ that artists – creative and sometimes unconventional people – are natural entrepreneurs, not just window dressing to lure those with excess disposable income to our economy.
Most seem to believe that this heightened interest in creative capital should be used to leverage more money for arts organizations and tax breaks for cultural industries, and that will be enough to develop and support, and provide income for, the actors, dancers, painters, writers, composers, weavers, costume designers, potters, etc., etc. While this approach may seem to make good economic development sense, it is still an ‘industrial/employment’ model. Build the industries, and they will hire the workers. How those ‘workers’ manage to survive, keep their skills sharp, and stay poised for opportunities between projects is their own business. All the risk is downloaded to the individual. A little social darwinism at work here.
This does not, as Mike points out, maximize the potential of local people to generate economic activity themselves through finding and releasing their creative and collaborative potential. It enables us to perpetuate the myth of the ‘starving artist’ as a given part of choosing a creative life. In fact, the ‘starving’ part has more to do with how the work of artists is managed and remunerated, than with being an artist. It is these self-subsidizing unconsious entrepreneurs whose existence and activities ramp up the ‘bohemian index’, revitalize urban wastelands, engage in community advocacy and challenge the status quo. And when the neighbourhood begins to revitalize, gentrification begins to push the costs of living in the area beyond the reach of those who made it attractive again.
This seems to be an accepted and expected process in every city and neighbourhood, bemoaned and fought against to little effect, over, and over again. It need not be so. We are wasting our most valuable opportunity to support a biomass of creativity by breaking this cycle, and it starts with a change in mindset by all concerned.
Daniel Pink points out in his book (A Whole New Mind: How to thrive in the new conceptual age), there is a need for those who can integrate information and ideas, conceptual thinkers, now that the knowledge economy is moving beyond information management. Those workers that make up Florida’s Creative Class – the ones we ‘need’ to attract – have been the programmers, sofware engineers and designers of code and web apps. Because they can work from anywhere, and their work is well paid, amenities and location for lifestyle can determine where they will settle and spend.
The local artists and cultural workers, although Creative, do not qualify through income to be part of the desired Class. Their earnings may not qualify them, and the prevailing assumption is that their earnings will never be sufficient to do so.
But you who work in sustainable development, small local economies and think long-term will appreciate the value of using the tools of Enterprise Facilitation to link the potential of local creative entrepreneurs to the knowledge and skills and ideas they can use to maximize their engagement in the economy. This is sustainable development, not a 21st-Century version of resource extraction, because it develops the people and the economy and the community in a way that is regenerative, resilient, relevant and effective – true capacity-building.