View source for User:Janis Klimanovs/Term 3: my factory/Reading/Notes about Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class, Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race.

''Pittsburgh has launched a multitude of programs to diversify the region's economy away from heavy industry into high technology.''

''A member of what I call the creative class: a fast-growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce on whose efforts corporate profits and economic growth increasingly depend. 
Members of the creative class do a wide variety of work in a wide variety of industries---from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts. 
They do not consciously think of themselves as a class. Yet they share a common ethos that values creativity, individuality, difference, and merit.''

''They apply or combine standard approaches in unique ways to fit the situation, exercise a great deal of judgment, perhaps try something radically new from time to time.''

''They acquire their own arcane bodies of knowledge and develop their own unique ways of doing the job.
These people contribute more than intelligence or computer skills. They add creative value.
As creativity becomes more valued, the creative class grows.''

''Places where people can find opportunity, build support structures, be themselves, and not get stuck in any one identity. The plug-and-play community is one that somebody can move into and put together a life---or at least a facsimile of a life---in a week.''

''Talented people seek an environment open to differences. Many highly creative people, regardless of ethnic background or sexual orientation, grew up feeling like outsiders, different in some way from most of their schoolmates.''

'''DIVERSITY'''

''Creative-minded people enjoy a mix of influences.
They favor active, participatory recreation over passive, institutionalized forms.
They want to pack their time full of dense, high-quality, multidimensional experiences.''

''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. 
It comes from the mix---from urban grit alongside renovated buildings, from the commingling of young and old, long-time neighborhood characters and yuppies, fashion models and "bag ladies." An authentic place also offers unique and original experiences.''
''Thus a place full of chain stores, chain restaurants, and nightclubs is not authentic. You could have the same experience anywhere.''

''Hard to change the ideology if it is trapped by their past.
Olson's analysis presciently identifies why so many cities across the nation remain trapped in the culture and attitudes of the bygone organizational age, unable or unwilling to adapt to current trends.''

''There is no one-size-fits-all model for a successful people climate. The members of the creative class are diverse across the dimensions of age, ethnicity and race, marital status, and sexual preference. An effective people climate needs to emphasize openness and diversity, and to help reinforce low barriers to entry. Thus, it cannot be restrictive or monolithic.''

'''From a review by Edward L. Glaeser''' 

http://www.creativeclass.com/rfcgdb/articles/GlaeserReview.pdf

''Creative occupations are growing and firms now orient themselves to attract the creative. Employers now prod their hires onto greater bursts of inspiration. The urban lesson of Florida’s book is that cities that want to succeed must aim at attracting the creative types who are, Florida argues, the wave of the future. 
Creativity is becoming a more important part of the economy. 
The market value of creative people has risen and large industries have tried to adapt to the rising importance of idea-creation.
Lifestyles really do differ across occupations, and changing workplace patterns assuredly do matter for changing lifestyle preferences.
He is also right in arguing that if cities want to succeed they need to think about providing lifestyle, or consumption, advantages to their residents.
Urban success comes from being an attractive “consumer city” for high skill people (see e.g. Glaeser, Kolko and Saiz, 2001).'' 

'''Notes from class:'''

Classical paradigm, if the city is rich and there are investors who can attract creative people, to bring up the city from the creative side. Bring art in to the city.
For example Rotterdam, harbor and other big companies based in here are attracting artists and creativity;

Authenticity - attracts people to a place, by making it artificially authentic it is not natural;
Creative class can turn in to creative industry; Creative class includes also people working into a financial sector;

***''The distinguishing characteristic of the creative class is that its members engage in work whose function is to "create meaningful new forms." The super- creative core of this new class includes scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, and architects, as well as the "thought leadership" of modern society: nonfiction writers, editors, cultural figures, think-tank researchers, analysts, and other opinion-makers.''

You have to create a tolerant climate in a city if you want to attract creative people;
Is it still possible to be an artist in such a industrial environment?
Are these thesis by Florida still valid after the crisis?

Knowledge economy 
The whole idea that you need a creative city isn't it old modern statement already?

There is one more thing created by this theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precarity
''Precarity - freelancing, working even for free, internships, knowledgable people are unemployed and in the beginning of their careers it is hard to get ion the market;''