God I love it when the experts prove me right.
How many times have I written the solution to Greensboro's downtown is to let it crash and burn so it can rise from the ashes? I don't know but the last time I wrote it I penned:
"The Phoenix must crash to the ground to rise from the ashes. Mankind has understood this for centuries. And yet Greensboro's civic leaders have for decades, foolishly attempted to keep the giant bird propped high above us, his giant wings blocking out the sun while all of us slowly die an arduous death. Cut down the spindly poles! Let the damned bird fall to the ground. Sure, a few of us will be crushed and others will burn as it burns but what you're trying to do will kill us all! Stop trying to subvert natural law. Let the bird burn so that our city can be reborn and rise with the Phoenix!"
What is Richard Florida now saying:
"Alec MacGillis, writing at The American Prospect in 2009, noted that after collecting large fees from down-at-the-heels burgs like Cleveland, Toledo, Hartford, Rochester, and Elmira, New York over the years, Florida himself asserted that we can’t “stop the decline of some places” and urged the country to focus instead on his high-ranked “creative” enclaves. “So, got that, Rust Belt denizens?” MacGillis noted wryly in a follow-up story last year at the New Republic. Pack your bags for Boulder and Raleigh-Durham and Fairfax County. Oh, and thanks again for the check.”
And even in Florida's rebuttal he concedes:
“City-regions that rank highest in terms of creative economic strength also rank highest in income inequality,” I wrote in The Washington Monthly a decade ago, in March 2003, based on a measure of metro wage inequality developed by my colleague Kevin Stolarick. “The issue isn’t simply one of social justice or equitable distribution of rewards,” I added. “It is a matter of functional inequality—and creative waste. Seventy percent of the workforce does not have the opportunity to do valuable creative work, as the favored 30 percent does. We are not close to hitting on all cylinders."
Isn't that exactly what in the hell I've been bitching about since I founded this blog on 27 Jan, 2012? I'm sorry if it was over the heads of Greensboro's elites with their Ivy League educations. Economic disparity, social justice, lack of opportunity, waste, favoritism, equitable distribution of rewards, are you all so stupid you can't understand or is it simply because my name isn't Richard Florida and I didn't take your money to tell you how you're screwing everything up.
Well guess what? I was right when Florida was wrong and now Florida is saying I was right all along. Can you understand that or do I need to rob you before it sinks in? Would you prefer I use my gun or my briefcase? Oops! I don't own a briefcase, sorry.
Florida makes another point I've made time and time again:
"Creative-class wages are high enough to make up for the higher housing costs, but not working- and service-class wages. Though their wage gains are real, they are not enough to cover their higher housing costs."
So Greensboro's economic solution is to build a downtown performing arts center where every one of the jobs it brings will be working and service class jobs? Are Greensboro's leaders all a bunch of idiots or do they really not give a damn?
Florida continues:
"That new social compact must address two important issues. One, it must work to lift the wages of those who toil in low-wage service and working-class jobs by harnessing more of their skills. My own research shows that when cognitive and social skills are added to those jobs it increases their wages, at a rate even greater than when they are added to knowledge work. And second, this urban social compact must address the other side of the coin, making housing more affordable by increasing density, and making urban centers more accessible by improving transit. There is a lot that cities can and must do to improve the lot of the 66 percent who aren’t reaping the full gains of the creative age. This report from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer (whom I worked with) outlines some strategies for extending New York’s knowledge and tech boom to a much broader strata of workers and residents. It’s just a beginning."
Greensboro's leaders won't like them but the solutions really are easy. But like I wrote yesterday, "Talk to me, maybe I'll tell you. Frankly, I'm a bit tired of giving away ideas to people who refuse to listen and later discovering that someone else all the way across the nation or around the world, was paying attention and making my ideas work for someone else."
After all, Greensboro has proven itself too dumb to take free advice even when it's right.
How many times have I written the solution to Greensboro's downtown is to let it crash and burn so it can rise from the ashes? I don't know but the last time I wrote it I penned:
"The Phoenix must crash to the ground to rise from the ashes. Mankind has understood this for centuries. And yet Greensboro's civic leaders have for decades, foolishly attempted to keep the giant bird propped high above us, his giant wings blocking out the sun while all of us slowly die an arduous death. Cut down the spindly poles! Let the damned bird fall to the ground. Sure, a few of us will be crushed and others will burn as it burns but what you're trying to do will kill us all! Stop trying to subvert natural law. Let the bird burn so that our city can be reborn and rise with the Phoenix!"
What is Richard Florida now saying:
"Alec MacGillis, writing at The American Prospect in 2009, noted that after collecting large fees from down-at-the-heels burgs like Cleveland, Toledo, Hartford, Rochester, and Elmira, New York over the years, Florida himself asserted that we can’t “stop the decline of some places” and urged the country to focus instead on his high-ranked “creative” enclaves. “So, got that, Rust Belt denizens?” MacGillis noted wryly in a follow-up story last year at the New Republic. Pack your bags for Boulder and Raleigh-Durham and Fairfax County. Oh, and thanks again for the check.”
And even in Florida's rebuttal he concedes:
“City-regions that rank highest in terms of creative economic strength also rank highest in income inequality,” I wrote in The Washington Monthly a decade ago, in March 2003, based on a measure of metro wage inequality developed by my colleague Kevin Stolarick. “The issue isn’t simply one of social justice or equitable distribution of rewards,” I added. “It is a matter of functional inequality—and creative waste. Seventy percent of the workforce does not have the opportunity to do valuable creative work, as the favored 30 percent does. We are not close to hitting on all cylinders."
Isn't that exactly what in the hell I've been bitching about since I founded this blog on 27 Jan, 2012? I'm sorry if it was over the heads of Greensboro's elites with their Ivy League educations. Economic disparity, social justice, lack of opportunity, waste, favoritism, equitable distribution of rewards, are you all so stupid you can't understand or is it simply because my name isn't Richard Florida and I didn't take your money to tell you how you're screwing everything up.
Well guess what? I was right when Florida was wrong and now Florida is saying I was right all along. Can you understand that or do I need to rob you before it sinks in? Would you prefer I use my gun or my briefcase? Oops! I don't own a briefcase, sorry.
Florida makes another point I've made time and time again:
"Creative-class wages are high enough to make up for the higher housing costs, but not working- and service-class wages. Though their wage gains are real, they are not enough to cover their higher housing costs."
So Greensboro's economic solution is to build a downtown performing arts center where every one of the jobs it brings will be working and service class jobs? Are Greensboro's leaders all a bunch of idiots or do they really not give a damn?
Florida continues:
"That new social compact must address two important issues. One, it must work to lift the wages of those who toil in low-wage service and working-class jobs by harnessing more of their skills. My own research shows that when cognitive and social skills are added to those jobs it increases their wages, at a rate even greater than when they are added to knowledge work. And second, this urban social compact must address the other side of the coin, making housing more affordable by increasing density, and making urban centers more accessible by improving transit. There is a lot that cities can and must do to improve the lot of the 66 percent who aren’t reaping the full gains of the creative age. This report from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer (whom I worked with) outlines some strategies for extending New York’s knowledge and tech boom to a much broader strata of workers and residents. It’s just a beginning."
Greensboro's leaders won't like them but the solutions really are easy. But like I wrote yesterday, "Talk to me, maybe I'll tell you. Frankly, I'm a bit tired of giving away ideas to people who refuse to listen and later discovering that someone else all the way across the nation or around the world, was paying attention and making my ideas work for someone else."
After all, Greensboro has proven itself too dumb to take free advice even when it's right.
