Richard Florida has written two articles for the Atlantic, 'Where the Brains Are' (Oct. '06) and 'How the Crash Will Reshape America' (Mar. '09).
Deindustrialization as described by the article posted by Parody is no big deal, per Florida's thesis. Oh, sure, it's a big deal for the little people, but the people who matter are entering a glorious age.
While he doesn't mention it in his Atlantic articles his speeches ($35,000 a pop) and books include a calculation of what constitutes good diversity in the cities of the future: high-tech workers, artists, musicians, lesbians and gay men, and "high bohemians".
Industrial cities are long dead. The suburbs are dying. Home ownership is foolish. All the 'right' people are going to congregate in the 'right' cities, manufacture ideas, drive up rents and thereby drive out the inferior people. These cities will enjoy a serving class housed in nearby suburbs.
The 'right' cities seem to include Los Angeles, Austin and Boulder. And of course New York and San Francisco. The 'right' people are highly educated. And really, really cool.
The hinterland will include a bit of farming, a bit of manufacturing. But that can be done anywhere, not just in the U.S. Just as long as it's done cheaply. Export jobs, import workers; it doesn't matter, just get the wages down and the benefits eliminated.
This trend is international. Cities that welcome immigrants are especially advantaged; London for example. But maybe not Tokyo or Paris.
There are problems with Florida's (grew up in Newark, of Italian descent, quite likely homosexual) vision. Race comes to mind. The cognitive elite tends to be white, Jewish and Asian. Blacks and non-white Hispanics might notice. They might not cooperate and leave the good cities. Whites, Jews and Asians might not forget who they are and might then not agree on who is top caste. Jews and Asians already resort to ethnic aggrandizement, but whites might (but doubtful) dare to play the same game.
A few sparkling coastal gems surrounded by dull, homophobic burgs and boondocks might not be worth defending militarily. Or at least it may prove difficult to induce non-elite white males to do the job. They may not even want to join the police force. And if straight white males aren't interested in protecting the Castro and Christopher Street then Bruce and Maurice have a problem.
It's not possible to attract all the smart people to select cities. They may not want to come. Even if they want to enter some will be left outside the golden gates because a quota needs to be filled or someone's relative from Tel Aviv needs a job. Poor, smart people are a danger. And outsiders will be quite poor when compared to the new elite. Further, this elite will be decadent and tolerant of decadence.
But the biggest problem with Richard Florida's dream is none of this is likely to happen. The greatest creative minds have been normal, sensible people living among other normal, sensible people; Idaho Mormon farmboy Philo Farnsworth, Henry Ford, Neal Stephenson, Carnegie, Madame Curie, Shockley, Tim Berners-Lee. Flamers and 'high bohemians' might be flamboyant, but rarely profound.
Creativity isn't solely fostered by 'vibrant' cities. Nor is creativity a matter of witty banter tossed about by Woody Allen characters (virtually all of it gags drawn from centuries-old Yiddish theater).
Creativity is the research which put a man on the moon. It's the invention of the electronic transistor. It's the assembly line. It's self-dissolving heart patches. It's the Automatic Kalishnakov '47. Will the new elite match any of this? Not likely, as their primary activity is congratulating themselves on how clever they are.
But to be fair recent gifts have blessed us. The sub-prime debacle born of the idea risk can be fully quantified by calculus and that blacks just need a chance at home ownership and will then act like whites. The Iraq War. The Afghanistan War. Both of which were going to be so easy because...well, just because.
