Saving the American Creative Class

Richard Florida was first up in the Global Creativity session, my favorite talk so far. I’m not sure if it was his childhood upbringing in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey burbs or his passion about the declining American creative class. Or both.

Here here. Creativity is the source of real value making up more than half of the income in the U.S. As for America’s creative class, its less about our pool of talent at home and more about our ability to pull the most creative minds in the world. It made me think of the slide in Larry Lessig’s creative commons talk that shows us that real innovation in the last century came from “kids” and non-Americans.

Florida claims that we’re in the midst of a fundamental economic revolution, even greater than the agricultural to industrial revolution. The real value is derived from creativity, but not just technological creativity.

He suggests that technology alone in this creative age is not going to make us safe. We need to be even more economically creative, and bring in the kind of creative entrepreneurs who can make great ideas into sustainable business models. And yet, this alone still isn’t enough. We also need aesthetic creativity. We can see where this is of increasing value every day, i.e., iPod. Beyond economic and aesthetic creativity, we need to pull in political and cultural creativity and once all these things come together, we get “real” economic growth.

He warns us however that unless we’re willing to harness the creativity of people, we’re going to lose the edge. As a society, we have to not only attract creative people but tap into those who don’t think they’re creative. He reminds us of the trends over the past couple of decades of creative people migrating to “places” that foster that creativity, i.e., San Francisco, NYC, Chicago.

These people are not one dimensional; these people yearn for a place that has energy. Not a single person he interviewed wanted a place with a new football or baseball stadium or an A level theatre or opera house. They're looking for a place where they could actively engage.

We want to go to these creative epicenters so we can be stimulated every day. His conclusion: “it’s not the way places attract businesses, but how they attract creative people.” What does this rising class do to attract creative minds?

I loved his idea of the Bohemian Index – and where “places” fell on the Bohemian Index. Places with high levels of immigration tend to be open to new ideas from culturally diverse people from around the world.

“Think about the presidential debates,” he points out. No one talks about the need to maintain the creative infrastructure in this country.

Bob Metcalfe asks “The vast majority of students are from outside the U.S. inside of MIT?

Florida’s response: “We have become chronically dependent on replacement people. You don’t see anglicized names anymore, we now see Indian names. We need to maintain a place that is open. We need to desperately invest in our own creative capital. Think about what Toyota did in manufacturing and how it changed the manufacturing model. If we can expand the boundaries and bring more people into the mix, we can take advantage of all that untapped energy. We need to keep our borders open and tap into people’s true creative spirits.”

Bob Metcalfe - Should we want the genius to come here, then go home and help their own countries?

Florida’s response: “We need to stop thinking about the brain drain idea. How many CEOs of Fortune 500 are foreign born? Many do go back. What we’re doing by restricting immigration is breaking that flow and virtuous cycle. It’s then harder for people to get back into the states. We’re not tapping into enough creative energy; instead we’re inflicting ourselves with too many wounds.

Today, the rates of inequality are the highest. And the places where inequality are the highest are those creative centers, i.e., Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Boston. Housing has become out of control and people won’t stay because they can’t afford to. The levels of mental anxiety are also the highest in the epicenters of the creative economy.

So what happened in the industry revolution? We had political leadership with Roosevelt. He didn’t say we’re going to put the breaks on. He said we’re going to grow our economy, make it more inclusive and spread its benefits. We’re going to expand public education and make universities open to more people. It was more inclusive. Today, people are angry. They’re saying “give me back my old America.”

Question from the audience: You talked about investing in people…why do the new creative industries seem so disinterested in re-inventing education?

Florida’s response: We’ve broken the connection between local education and local success. The second point is quite perplexing. I think business is giving up. This scares me and is why I wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review. Business has learned to deal with this more flexibly by outsourcing and hiring the guy from India or Bejing. Who does get it? Every single major in this country and council people get it. The real problem is how do you get the local issues up to the national level.

Richard Florida is the author of the groundbreaking book, The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure Community and Everyday Life. The book has been widely acclaimed in the New York Times and other major media for showing how the most profound changes in our workplace, culture and everyday lives come from the rise of creativity as an economic force.