User:Grrrreat/research/notes-14-05-12

In his article "The rise of the creative class", Richard Florida describes the situation of the newly emerged 'creative class' which constitutes a main factor in economic growth.

"The distinguishing characteristic of the creative class is that its members engage in work whose function is to 'create meaningful new forms'." 'New' and 'unique' are important words in this context. They describe what, in the best case, is expected from a creative laborer and what their output, whatever shape it might have, must be. New, unique, and also often added: unconventional. Unconventional problem solving is supposed to be what separates the highly sought-after creatives from the common factory worker.

"Everywhere we look, creativity is increasingly valued. Firms and organizations value it for the results that it can produce and individuals value it as a route to self-expression and job satisfaction. Bottom line: As creativity becomes more valued, the creative class grows."

After this he goes on about how the creative class restructures their habitats, and how their prospective habitats restructure in order to attract them. The interesting thing is here how he somehow fedines creativity as individual and unique solutions but tries to analyze the creative class as a whole. The fact that this is possible seems to take a lot of the individual and unique (which a re supposedly based on the personalities of individuals, Florida argues along the lines of that as well) out of the perspective.

"Cities and regions that attract lots of creative talent are also those with greater diversity and higher levels of quality of place. That's because location choices of the creative class are based to a large degree on their lifestyle interests, and these go well beyond the standard "quality-of-life" amenities that most experts think are important."

"They crave stimulation, not escape. They want to pack their time full of dense, high-quality, multidimensional experiences. Seldom has one of my subjects expressed a desire to get away from it all. They want to get into it all, and do it with eyes wide open."

"Places are also valued for authenticity and uniqueness. Authenticity comes from several aspects of a community---historic buildings, established neighborhoods, a unique music scene, or specific cultural attributes."

Authenticity is a deceptive term. But he tries to break it down in a way that makes it work in his context, and also in a way that is maybe the perspective among the creative class. In general there seems to be a big gap between the authenticity, uniqueness and individuality which are so highly valued in the creative class and the strict economic analysis (and the mere fact that this analysis is possible) of the creative class, which is again interestingly working in a field that is often referred to as the culture industry, by name the very opposite of the aforementioned values.

"It is a telling commentary on our age that at a time when political will seems difficult to muster for virtually anything, city after city can generate the political capital to underwrite hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in professional sports stadiums. And you know what? They don't matter to the creative class. Not once during any of my focus groups and interviews did the members of the creative class mention professional sports as playing a role of any sort in their choice of where to live and work."

Either way: it seems, according to the text, that the creative class has a strong force of shaping the future of places. The reason for this is because they gain more and more economic importance. But since the mentality in this field is one that is coined by terms like 'authenticity' 'uniqueness' 'openess' and 'velocity', Florida sees them as a big game-changer, able to influence the culture and infrastructure of places strongly.

"How do you build a truly creative community---one that can survive and prosper in this emerging age? The key can no longer be found in the usual strategies. Recruiting more companies won't do it; neither will trying to become the next Silicon Valley. While it certainly remains important to have a solid business climate, having an effective people climate is even more essential. By this I mean a general strategy aimed at attracting and retaining people---especially, but not limited to, creative people. This entails remaining open to diversity and actively working to cultivate it, and investing in the lifestyle amenities that people really want and use often, as opposed to using financial incentives to attract companies, build professional sports stadiums, or develop retail complexes."

While this actually seems very promising, I is still open if the approach of applying a strategy, a structure or a plan to a field where authenticity and uniqueness are the important values is not actually undermining these values themselves, creating an industrialized form of authentic, open and unique places to live for creatives.

Also: He says that Lifestyle is often chosen over an individual job. But lifestyle (at least in the way the media present it)is the probably most non-authentic thing mentioned in this article. Lifestyle, especially in the creative class, is mainly made up of ideals manufactured and distributed by the creative industry.

Also: The way he generalizes the creative class, you could also sub-generalize inside the creative class. classical graphic design for example: people coming from lower- to mid- middle class families. this is just an assumption, but there are probably studies that can prove or disprove it. either way, the more common features a study like this would find among a certain sub-group like this, the more it would be plausible that the will and aspiration for creative thinking are also in big parts industrially manufactured since there has to be an underlying structure giving birth to such a structured (but hypothetical) result.