June, 2006

Schools, Scholarships, and Work

In the last two days, everyone has put up interesting posts and Will, the moderator, has sneaked in a few questions of his own. A lot to discuss but I will keep my responses short.
On Ed’s question—what’s to become of Vestal—I am somewhere between Robin and Richard. Ed grew up in Vestal just like I […]

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Immigration, Density, and Tolerance

Great post, Robin. You and I agree on two things, both backed by solid empirical findings.
Immigration: The most powerful driver of economic development in small and mid-sized regions, as Rise of the Creative Class points out, is immigration. The other factors Robin and I have debated, the gay index and bohemian index, are important […]

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Places Only Matter Because People Do

Ed asks if there is any way to save upstate New York. But first I have to ask: is it worth saving? Our allegiance should fundamentally be to people, not places. Economic growth includes changes in the distribution of jobs, industries, and regions, and part of the real costs of growth are the costs […]

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More Than Disaster Relief

Ed nails it. We need to be more concrete. I like his example a lot. I should: my team and I have actually worked a lot in parts of this region, especially Syracuse, Ithaca, and Corning.
I think we can do more than disaster relief. This is why I developed my theory and approach. I think […]

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It’s Like Hurricanes

Rather than in the abstract, try tackling the following problem.
I grew up in the small town of Vestal near Binghamton, New York. The major industry of the area in 1900 was cigars, which left when tobacco fashion shifted to cigarettes and cigarette production was mechanized. No matter, by 1950 the Endicott Johnson shoe company had […]

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Why Openness Matters

Robin, Thanks again for your thoughtful comments. The elaborations and clarifications in this dialogue are mighty useful. In that vein, one last clarification: My theory does not say regions “cause” hackers or anyone else to be innovative. It says instead that regions that have these “low barriers to entry” attract more potentially innovative people. As […]

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To Clarify

Just to be clear, I don’t claim that Richard intended at any point to enter the culture wars, or to advocate for a political viewpoint. And as a theorist, I am not taking a position on the quality or conclusions of his empirical analysis. His argument combines empirical claims of certain observed regularities with theoretical […]

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Mobile Human Capital and the Culture Wars

This is good—really good. I like Robin’s persistence. He makes me think. And that’s always good. Let me take some time to reply.
First off, I think the passage Robin quotes from my book speaks for itself. There is a correlation between these two things, the gay index and the bohemian index and (1) innovation […]

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Bohemians and Gays Are near Ground Zero in the Culture Wars

Richard writes:
When I say “self-expression” he says “bohemian self-expression.” … He says my concepts are “overloaded,” but in reality it’s his adjectives and modifiers that are really loaded. … I have no stake in the cultural wars. None, Nada. How many times, in how many ways, can I say this. I already […]

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The Derived Demand for Equality

I agree with Robin that Americans have little demand for an abstract economic equality. But that is not the issue. The issue begins with people measuring their economic circumstances against where they reasonably expect to be. For example, if you look at the May 2006 economic polls of the American Research Group, 52 percent […]

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The Utility of “Creativity”

Robin’s fun. He likes to modify words for me and tell me what I think. Kinda cool, actually.
So when I say “self-expression” he says “bohemian self-expression.” When I say “diversity” he says “ethnic diversity.” He says my concepts are “overloaded,” but in reality it’s his adjectives and modifiers that are really loaded.
He says […]

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The Weak Demand for Equality

Frank Levy writes:
[W]e do a lousy job measuring the inefficiency (and loss of creativity) that comes from economic insecurity, stagnant wages, and shrinking benefits. There are many things we can do without turning our economy into the new France. It is about time we started trying.
If workers had a strong enough demand for more benefits […]

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Florida’s Concepts are Overloaded

Richard, I have tried to focus on more specific phrases like “bohemian self-expression” and “ethnic diversity” because they have more specific connotations. Unmodified, words like “expression,” “diversity,” “open,” and “creative” have so many associations that it is not clear that they refer to anything useful. You mention a person bored in […]

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