Who's Your City? Richard Florida On Where to Live, Now and Later

In his new book, Who’s Your City, Richard Florida (of Rise of the Creative Class fame) says the "creative economy is making where you live the most important decision of your life."

Today’s key economic indicators—talent, innovation and creativity—are concentrated in strategic areas, he argues, making the world not a flat place but a spiky one. Florida brands the spiky mega-regions in the world, including our own “Chicago Pittsburgh corridor” (a.k.a., Chi Pitts), which is the third largest. And he ranks American cities for best places to live at different stages of life, spinning a new way of looking at our place in the world today.

Is it for real? Or, as Comedy Central's Steven Colbert joked at the end of his humorous interview, which is in the book, is Florida simply a “gay, bohemian artist who just wants to sell his house?”

Tracy Certo, with Capital Gains’ sister publication Pop City in Pittsburgh, recently interviewed Florida, who went out of his way to point out that the good life can be found in places like Lansing and East Lansing.

Ivy Hughes, development news editor for Capital Gains, got reaction from the president of Prima Civitas, David Hollister, who is familiar with Florida’s work, to learn how the Lansing area fits into these mega-region trends. 
 
(The answers were edited and condensed for space.)

Part 1. Richard Florida

You write that the real source of economic growth comes from the clustering and concentration of talented and productive people, and that today’s global economy is powered by a surprisingly small number of places. So what’s to become of the rest of the world?

Florida: Well, I'm scared, and one of the reasons I wrote this book is because I'm scared. The book is an empirical observation:  the way the world is, not the way I wish the world would be.

Look, if we believe in this mythology that the world is flat, that anyone can plug and play and compete from anywhere, we're missing the point that economic resources—resources required for invention—are really concentrating in a way that few people, even leading urbanists, understand.

More than 50% of us live in urban regions. These 40 mega regions (around the world) with less than 20% of the population account for about two-thirds of the world's economic output.

What the book says is, either we have to figure out a way as a world—which looks like a long shot given the bandwidth of our national politicians—to push up the valleys, or we have to understand that, like it or not, their (people’s) economic future may depend on their ability to move.

How can a city in this Chi Pitts mega-region better compete in the global economy?

Florida: I think one of the things that's important there is that the universities play a really big role. And in Detroit, if you look at my own rankings, look at the rankings for Ann Arbor and Lansing. Detroit lags behind Ann Arbor and Lansing.

The future of Greater Detroit—and this is hard for people to understand—is in Ann Arbor and Lansing. And in that sense, Detroit may actually, on paper, have a better future, with the breadth and extent of those two tremendous universities, than just about anywhere else on the planet.

But the leadership mind has to wrap around it and say, "Look, it's no longer going to be just a rebuilding of downtown. We have to build something really interesting and exciting around our major universities."

As the state [of Michigan] begins to turn around over the course of the next four or five years, I think Grand Rapids is a place with a very bright future, because of its mix in the area: lakefront amenities, which can be very exciting for empty nesters' second homes; but it has this incredible core of research and innovation in its work.

What about the theory that it’s easier to affect change in a place like Detroit or Cincinnati or a smaller city? In our publication, we hear this a lot from people who return from major cities.

Florida: We heard this in all of our work over the past ten years for the interviews for Rise of the Creative Class, locational histories, and interviews up to this book: people want to be in a place they can affect change. 

This quote that I've always loved—this young man in Providence said to me, "Rich, I was living in San Francisco. So I can take San Francisco from an 8.5 to a 9.2? When I moved back to Providence, I had a place that is a four that I could make an eight.”

I think [it’s] this ability to be involved—to be physically involved, to be socially involved, involved with your friends, your family, and be in a place that's easy to navigate.

I was blown away by what's happened in downtown Dayton. It’s a more interesting and exciting place, filled with arts and restaurants and renovated houses and buildings. But, too, how these thirty catalysts—black, white, young, old, Hispanic, Latino—how much they cared about making their city better. I think unleashing that energy in people is really key.

Part 2. David Hollister, Prima Civitas

What can Mid-Michigan region leaders do to quell the flight of talent out of the region?

Hollister: We’re very tuned into what Florida is talking about because it’s consistent with what we know be true, as well.

College kids need to see their college town as more than just a place to get an education. They need to see it economically viable, entertaining and exciting. They also need to know they can get a job.

National studies show that 80 percent of juniors and seniors will stick around after graduation if they’ve had an internship in the area. We’re trying to link area students with internships before they graduate.

A lot of the kids at MSU had never been Downtown [Lansing]. We take them to the lofts, to Old Town, to the restaurants. There’s been a real concerted effort to get these young people to realize they don’t have to go to California or Chicago to enjoy these jobs.

Is Mid-Michigan open minded and tolerant, or does it need to be more diverse and inclusive?

Hollister: Unfriendly international immigration laws prohibit MSU foreign students from staying in the area after they graduate.

Diversity is one of the key elements of thriving urban communities. We need to be more tolerant and more inclusive. This means closing the digital divide that exists between immigrants and low-income individuals and the rest of the population.

Does Mid-Michigan suffer from poor leadership and if so, what can we do to change that?

Hollister: In thriving regions, the political leadership is not providing the impetus behind it, it’s being provided by the business community.

In Lansing, business leaders at the Accident Fund, Capitol National Bank and the legal community came together to form LEAP. The mayor was part of it, but the leadership itself is coming form the business community. It’s a new paradigm, a new configuration.

Do you agree that young people like to live in a place where they are more likely to affect change?

Hollister: I think they want to be where the action is. They want to know where the night clubs are and where the new technology is. They want communities are open-minded, have a high sense of walkability and mixed use properties. They want a vibrant place that is thriving 24/7. Those are the cool cities that are attracting people.

---

Tracy Certo is editor of Pop City. Ivy Hughes is development news editor of Capital Gains. 

Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.

---

Photos:

Richard Florida (photo courtesy Richard Florida)

David Hollister

Downtown Lansing festival

Michigan State University

Motor Wheel Lofts

David Hollister

LEAP

All Photographs © Dave Trumpie (unless noted)