Are we any cooler?
By Christina Rexrode, Times Staff Writer
Published April 29, 2007
When someone with the unforgettable name of Richard Florida came to town four years ago, he charmed an audience of 500 bay area industry and arts leaders at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center with this message:
If your city isn't hip, your economy will wither and die.
Then Richard Florida was off to some other speaking engagement in some other midsized metro area. But the Carnegie Mellon regional economist with the unorthodox message left behind a host of fans here, energized by his bohemian-minded battle cry. That summer, they formed a volunteer-run group called Creative TampaBay to begin implementing his edicts on attracting the so-called creative class.
Critics call Florida's vision anything from lightweight to elitist. But here's the bitter reality: As baby boomers retire, metro areas must replace and compete for innovative people and top talent from a much smaller population. Not every metro area will get its fair share. And every metro area is looking for an edge to compete.
"I think the community has really drunk the Kool-Aid on that idea, " says Michelle Bauer, who was with Creative TampaBay from the beginning.
She means that in a good way.
Florida posits in his 2002 bestseller, The Rise of the Creative Class, that the economy is now powered not by industry or technology but by human creativity. His creative class concept struck a nerve, enough to make the Harvard Business Review call it one of the "breakthrough ideas" of 2004.
According to Rise, about one-third of the U.S. workforce, or 38-million people, are members of the creative class. They aren't just artists and actors. It's anyone who creates ideas or technology for a living. Scientists, engineers, architects and educators are all potential members.
Further, Florida argues, the creative class tends to gravitate toward cities like Austin, Texas, and Seattle, which offer a thriving arts and music scene, a sense of community, tolerance and lots of options for outdoor recreation.
Cities that don't become cultural magnets, Florida warns, will lose their appeal to the creative class and thus "will be hard-pressed to survive." His doomsday message only intensifies in his 2005 book, The Flight of the Creative Class, in which he warns that U.S. cities must compete not only with one another for the creative class, but with places across the globe like Sydney, Shanghai, Amsterdam and Dublin.
"If we're asleep at the switch, we're going to lose opportunities, " agreed Stuart Rogel, president of the Tampa Bay Partnership regional economic development group. "We're going to lose opportunities and individuals."
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Florida's name is still on the lips of many bay area movers and shakers. The formation of Creative TampaBay was only the beginning.
In an e-mail to the St. Petersburg Times, Florida called the Tampa Bay area a model for cities looking to grow their creative class.
"Your leadership got it, your mayor got it, your chamber got it, " Florida wrote.
Local leaders say Florida, 49, sparked conversation about ideas that people here already had kicking around in their heads. He catalyzed them with a big-picture pep talk, then left them to figure out the nitty-gritty.
A year after his visit, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce launched Emerge Tampa, a group for professionals ages 21 to 35. It has blossomed into 600-plus members and spawned similar area groups including St. Pete Young Professionals, YES Pasco and even a statewide group called Emerge Florida.
"We heard from several (members) that they've chosen to stay in this community ... because of this program, " said Nicole Levin, 26, who co-chairs Emerge Tampa. "And I'm one of those people."
Several artistic venues, including the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and the Dunedin Fine Art Center, have recently started their own groups for young professionals.
Creative TampaBay holds regular public discussions on topics like urban planning, distributes its e-newsletter to thousands of subscribers, and has commissioned several studies on how to attract the young and the educated to the bay area.
"He got me excited about an idea, " Peter Kageyama, Creative TampaBay's president, said of Richard Florida. "And frankly, I had not been excited about an idea since I was in college."
Hillsborough County, in its recently updated cultural plan, said exploring health insurance programs for artists and creative workers is a high priority.
Tampa created the position of a creative-industries manager for the city just months after Florida's visit. Its chamber of commerce sent arts representatives on two recent international trade missions for the first time, and now arranges an annual bus tour to alert business leaders of local creative industries like animation studios and the International Academy of Design & Technology.
By contrast, Paul Wilborn, Tampa's creative-industries manager, said the chamber's arts and cultural affairs committee "was kind of floundering four years ago."
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To be sure, the bay area still faces obstacles in attracting the creative class. Besides, Richard Florida's critics note, all the dog parks and film festivals in the world won't fix major underlying economic problems.
"He can take you to a thousand places where policymakers followed his advice, " says Jamie Peck, a professor of geography and sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, "but pointing to results is a different thing altogether."
The problem, he says, is that Florida's ideas for improving cities are mostly cosmetic, low-budget, "feel-good" policies that can't be linked to direct economic results.
Others here say there's still a prejudice against young workers. "It took longer for people (here) to trust me or give me half the responsibility I had in New York, " said Tommy Campbell, the inaugural head of St. Pete Young Professionals, who moved here four years ago.
Area public transportation - high on Florida's list of values of the creative class - is still too thin a service to be an attractive alternative to driving. Area music stations leave something to be desired, some say. And despite ongoing efforts, much of downtown Tampa is still shuttered by 6 p.m.
"Downtown Tampa sucks, " was a typical response in a survey commissioned by Creative TampaBay called "The Young and the Restless."
Added Joe McCann, dean of the University of Tampa's business school: "I have to say, this is still not the intellectual capital of America."
The biggest obstacle of all? Money.
The state's reputation for its low cost of living is quickly disappearing, housing prices and rent are outpacing wages, and employers will have to get used to offering higher pay to attract or keep talent.
"The sunshine complex, " Kageyama calls it, when employers assumed workers would overlook low wages for the sake of getting to live in Florida. "I think that's diminishing."
At the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., senior analyst Jennifer Vey agrees that all metro areas should focus on improving their amenities and quality of life. But that's just part of the equation.
"The amenity strategy has to be just part of an overall strategy, " she said. "Any city recognizes that they have to be focused on making their streets safe, their schools good, and that they have a competitive climate for businesses.
"We refer to some of this as 'fixing the basics.' "
Christina Rexrode can be reached at crexrode@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8318.
Who make up the creative class?
Educated, mobile and well-paid workers that businesses increasingly depend on for profits and growth. Fields range from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts.
Where do they live?
They tend to cluster in metro areas rich with "technology, talent and tolerance." Austin and San Francisco are big magnets; Oklahoma City and Buffalo rank low.
Can Tampa Bay attract more of them?
It had better. Tampa Bay is the oldest of the 25 largest urban areas, with an average age of 40. We're 39th of 50 in the size of our creative class. We're 45th of 50 for 25- to 34-year-olds with bachelor's degrees.
What they're saying
Deanne Roberts, Roberts Communications, Ybor City
She led the Tampa chamber the year that Florida visited, and helped bring him here.
"It was the first time I saw groups of people together who don't normally mingle. You had an arts crowd, a technology crowd and a chamber crowd. And before, they had been in silos."
Stuart Rogel, president of the Tampa Bay Partnership
He's a fan of Richard Florida but says a creative community is only part of an economic picture.
"There's a lot of nice places to live I can think of, but there are no jobs (there) to sustain the type of life I want to live."
Sigrid Tidmore, Creative TampaBay board of directors
"If you want to attract people - if they feel like they're coming to a cultural wasteland, where there is no good university, where there is no new thought going on, no vibrant urban happenings, they're not going to come."
Joseph Cortright, Impresa Consulting in Portland, Ore.
He conducted the studies "The Young and the Restless: How Tampa Bay Competes for Talent" and "Tampa Bay: Things Look Different Here."
"The key message that Richard's communicating is that talented people are really important to your economic health today. ... That's absolutely undeniable. You might say, 'We've known that for a long time, ' but he's clearly the person who has given voice to that (idea)."
Nicole Levin, 26, co-chair of Emerge Tampa
One of Emerge Tampa's goals is to enliven downtown Tampa.
"If you stay open, if you bring business to this area .... we'll host events down there. We want businesses to look to us as a resource for that."
Kyle Fulcher, 23, senior at the University of South Florida
He's entering medical school when he graduates and doubts he'd stay here even if he had the choice.
"You can go to Georgia, which is all of six hours away, and make another $10, 000 to $15, 000 per year. I have lots of friends who moved to Atlanta."
Paul Wilborn, creative ndustries manager for Tampa
"What I like about it is it sort of positions creativity and the arts in more of an economic development context than just, 'Hey, it's good for you.' "
About Richard Florida
Profession: Regional economist, currently Hirst professor of public policy at Virginia's George Mason University and also founder of the Richard Florida Creativity Group think tank in Washington, D.C.
Credo: Metro areas that support and inspire creativity will attract more talented people - and companies that want to hire them. Ranked hundreds of metro areas in the country on a creativity index. Tampa Bay ranked in the middle.
Visited: Spoke to Tampa Bay business leaders in April 2003, stoking an area movement to embrace his goals.
Grew up: In an Italian family in a "Sopranos-like" neighborhood of Newark, N.J.
Author: Of multiple books, but The Rise of the Creative Class sparked his career.
Age: 49