Book Review: Who's Your City

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

Author
Richard Florida

Date of Publication
2007

Reason for reading
My roommate had Florida's 2002 book in his favorite books (on Facebook). I read the background of the author and then read the book at the bookstore and have now ordered it on amazon.

Genre and/or Themes
Environment and psychology, society (public vs private collaboration), systems and networks

Author Background
Richard Florida is a professor at the University of Toronto and does research social theory and economies. He has a PhD. from Columbia and worked at the George Mason University School of Public Policy and at Carnegie Mellon's I-school (information school). He seems like a decent person but it's hard to say - his temperament is even (from what I've read of how he responds to his criticism) but again my data here is too limited to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Synopsis
This is the best book I've ever read on networks (and the only one outside of my business classes). The last and greatest utility of man that has not been replaced by computers is innovation and creativity. Our economies are now reflecting this but not in a homogenous fashion. Certain parts of the country (and world) "have more spikes" according to Florida. The creative output is higher in places you may have already guessed: San Francisco, Boston, Pittsburg/Chicago beltway etc. Florida believes (and has large data to support) the thesis that creativity is the valued commodity and certain regions are better than others for those who want to exploit this.

Review
At the level of the idea, this is not entirely new. It synthesizes what we already had intuited and presents the information in a way that is more scientific but I'd argue quasi-scientific (which doesn't normally bother me but some of his assumptions appear to be false). The book is broken into four parts. Why Place Matters is the first section detailing Florida's "mega-regions". I would like to direct you to this article by Florida: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13070_23-193140.html which gives the data on the mega-regions. Are you wondering if Minneapolis is one of the regions? It does not make his top 10. A megaregion must meet three key criteria. First, it must be a contiguous, lighted area with more than one major city center. Second, it must have a population of 5 million or more. Finally, it must produce more than $100 billion in goods and services. By that definition, there are some 40 megaregions in the world.
Historical Context: David Ricardo and Adam Smith analogy - these mega regions of 2009 would equal Ricardo's "nation-state." Ricardo and Smith both seem to borrow this term for more classical thought. If we recall, Socrates describes nation-state in The Republic. I'd postulate every civilization has had its version of a nation-state. See the wikipedia article for more information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state) Also, these ideas have been in science fiction. Futuristic concepts of what cities actually can become (think Judge Dread sp).

I remember in college looking at this picture:
http://members.wolfram.com/billw/images/earth_lights.jpg

This appears to be the impetus for Florida and his research team. "The use of light footprints to define megaregions produces a precise and complex boundary to each region." He and colleauges then combine this and cross-analyze with other metrics such as traffic density and GDP by region. He goes onto to say that Thomas Friedman was wrong about the world becoming flat (flat here means that technology basically connects us all and gives everyone equal opportunities for financial success). Minneapolis falls into the Chi-Pitts megaregion. This is very interesting because about 2 weeks ago I remember listening to an MPR piece on creating a high-speed railway between Minneapolis and Chicago and then I found this just now: http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/richard_florida/2009/05/mega-regions_and_high-speed_rail.php

The highspeed railway does not look to be built anytime soon (in short, too much opposition from existing mass transit authorities and employees eg bus, plane).

Section 2 deals with how the individual will respond to this (assuming part one is true). There will be greater opportunities to the person who can not just move to the economic megaregions but remains mobile in mindset. Those who are rooted to one area will find more economic hardship basically.

In Section 3 Florida explains the results by linking the dominant forms of employment in the areas with the personality traits: manufacturing regions require people who are agreeable (follow rules) and conscientious (work with dangerous machinery), openness comes from areas with high immigrant populations, and extroversion from areas with management headquarters and sales related jobs. Florida finds that his Gay and Bohemian Index, which connected gay and artistic communities to high growth and wealth generation areas, is actually a proxy for regions with large concentrations of the openness personality trait.

Florida is taking a lot of liberties in this part of the book but making the argument that culture of a city contributes to its economic success is hard to make with pure data alone. Part of it is going to have to be subjective and I'm willing to buy this idea. But, referring to psychological profiling, I'd simply say open-mindedness in culture begets open-mindedness is the economy of ideas (and ultimately financial power).

Section 4 is about how you personally respond to this information. I'll simply cut and paste from wikipedia (as their treatment is as good as mine or better since I don't know how to make tables in the blog-composer):

The final part of the book, Where We Live Now, suggests that the average life has three big moves: when leaving a parent's home, when starting a family, and when retiring (or when children move out). When youth leave their home (or when they leave college), those who can move away, choose to locate in areas that offer attractive job markets, cultural or recreational amenities, and rank high in quality of life factors. When they get married or have children, people are choosing areas that are perceived as safe and family-friendly. Florida suggests using a Trick-or-Treater Index, do parent feel safe allowing their children to go door-to-door on Halloween; or Catherine Austin Fitts's Popsicle Index, how far are parents willing to allow their children to walk to buy a treat. Once retired, or when kids leave home, the parents tend to gravitate towards similar areas as young people, but in quieter neighborhoods. They desire opportunities for hobbies or a second career and proximity to grandchildren. The final chapter lists five factors to consider before choosing a location to reside followed by a 10 step plan to help people choose. The five factors to consider are (1) short and long term career goals (2) importance of being physically close to family and friends (3) desirable lifestyle options (e.g. access to beaches, water bodies, mountains, etc.) (4) locating close to similar personality types, and (5) current life stage. The ten step plan is outlined below:

Florida's ten-step plan to help narrow the field and make a decision on where to live

	Description of step	Notes
1	Get your priorities straight	Write down preferences, including the grand and trivial.
2	Generate a short-list	The previous step should rule out many locations and identify suitable broad regions.1
3	Do your homework	Collect information on each potential location by doing research, such as reading local newspapers or asking questions of local residents.2 considering leadership or direction of officials, social values of people or organizations, and aesthetics of the place.
4	What do they offer?	Assess and rank the potential locations by local economic conditions, especially with respect to jobs, professional development, and networking opportunities.
5	Getting the basics right	Assess and rank the potential locations by educational facilities, safety, health care, housing, transportation and other similar services.
6	Does the place get it?	Assess the potential locations by the initiatives that political and community leaders have been taking
7	Values check	Assess the potential locations by the predominant social values displayed by residents and organization, especially in attitudes towards tolerance, trust, and self-expression.
8	Come on city, light my fire	Assess and rank the potential locations by recreational, cultural and aesthetic interests.
9	Tally it up	From these rankings, weigh the pros and cons of the short-listed places and decide which place fits best.
10	Go there	Before committing, visit the decided upon location first. Choose the location that meets expectations upon a visit.

Problems with the logic:

Richard throws into the Creative Class almost everybody and groups them in two categories: the Super Creative Core and the "creative professionals". These two groups include: scientists, professors, poets, novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, architects, non-fiction writers, editors, cultural figures, researchers, analysts, programmers, engineers, filmmakers, financial services, legal and health care professionals, business management and the list goes on.

I of coure do not think (actually I KNOW) that health care professionals are not in his creative class. Physician-scientists are, but just barely. And the argument for financial services needs to be stronger. Of course, whoever controls the capital controls the people (labor supply), but the average financial service person is doing nothing creative; he's just making money. The Federal Reserve and central banks however, have a lot of control (arguably the most). Politicians you note, are left out. This is very interesting and leads me to my addition to this book.

If you can recall Sim City, then this will make perfect sense, if not then it won't. Politicians actually are not like the nerve-center deciders that they should be. They seem more to play games where they protect themselves first and worry about resources/people second. Keep in mind, no formal training is required to be a mayor but he still gets to handle the resources. I am forced to ask the question of whether this kind of governance will work in the future. If the society is truly democratic, then if it's possible I believe adults will have to live three lives: the life of their specialization and job (the ant function), their family life (especially if they decide to have kids), and their societal job (sim city function). As has been discussed here already, we do not seem to have democracy. The assumption for this model changes to take into account the kind of democracy we do have and we find that while the rest of the society is evolving and adapting to technology, politics is not. I'd like a focus of our discussion to be whether this is dangerous and incompatible with the current society.

Quotes
I'd simply say to look at the images I've provided and the additional reading (figures and tables sections). This is better than any quote I could give you to aid your memory.

Additional Reading:

http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/userfiles/prosperity/File/Rise.of.%20the.Mega-Regions.w.cover.pdf

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/earth_lights_lrg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.maximizingprogress.org/2008_01_01_archive.html&usg=__DqUg-3lKlzNkjb2fPMmY9ugjgfg=&h=1200&w=2400&sz=535&hl=en&start=22&sig2=TNzrH1rLKUjx1hRzKxYSJg&um=1&tbnid=o6sBlhky9YpPhM:&tbnh=75&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dearth%2Blight%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1&ei=tk7TSt3qFqKyNNKPgZUD