"Creative Class War" by Richard Florida

Richard Florida, a professor of economic development at Carnegie Mellon University, has written a great article linked below. He notes the role of a creative elite in economic development, one which has emerged in the last decade. The members of the elite brought the world the ICT revolution, but also the most popular music, movies, etc. In the modern world, they disproportionately are the products of graduate education at good universities.

In the 1990's this elite flocked to creative centers in the U.S. -- Silicon Valley, the Route 128 corridor around Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, New York, Austin. They came to these centers not only from all over the United States, but from India, China, and the rest of the world. This was not a brain drain, but a brain draw -- the creative people went to the places where they could join other creative people and create.

Florida notes that the result was a growing cultural divide -- the creative centers versus the farming states, industrial cities, and those people tied to the industries prototypical of previous waves of innovation. The creative elite tend to be socially liberal, internationalist, and technocratic. The Clinton-Gore administration represented them well.

The other camp tended to be socially conservative, nationalist, political, and technologically conservative. The Bush-Cheney administration represents them well. Their administration has subsidized the old industries, banned some kinds of research (i.e. stem cell), challenged the scientific basis of the Kyoto treaty and abandoned it, etc. They have also cut the rate of entry to the U.S. of foreign-born members of the creative elite in half, and created conditions that encourage creative people here to go abroad.

Florida points out that dispensing with the cream of a countries creative talent may not be good for its long term growth. Other countries are aware of the importance of creativity, and countries from Ireland, to India, to New Zealand are going to compete. In a world where geographic distances are ever less of a barrier to trade in the key products of the information age, the migration of creative people is important!

"Creative Class War" by Richard Florida