‘Drive through rural Sweden, as I did a few years ago. In every town was a beautiful Lutheran church, freshly painted, on meticu-ously tended grounds, all subsidized by the Swedish government.And the churches are empty. Including on Sundays. Scandinavia and Western Europe pride themselves on their “child-friendly” policies, providing generous child allowances, free day-care centers, and long maternity leaves. Those same countries have fertility rates far below replacement and plunging marriage rates. Those same countries are ones in which jobs are most carefully protected by government regulation and mandated benefits are most lavish. And they, with only a few exceptions, are countries where work is most often seen as a necessary evil, least often seen as a vocation, and where the proportions of people who say they love their jobs are the lowest.’
Remember when you were supposed to become a metrosexual?:
‘Perhaps the best that can be said about the creative-class idea is that it follows a real, if overhyped, phenomenon: the movement of young, largely single, childless and sometimes gay people into urban neighborhoods. This Soho-ization—the transformation of older, often industrial urban areas into hip enclaves—is evident in scores of cities. It can legitimately can be credited for boosting real estate values from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Wicker Park in Chicago and Belltown in Seattle to Portland’s Pearl District as well as much of San Francisco’
Kotkin on Richard Florida’s vision:
‘His reasonable and fairly brave, if belated, takeaway: “On close inspection, talent clustering provides little in the way of trickle-down benefits.’
So If the jobs aren’t all coming from tech, knowledge, and the ‘creative class,’are they coming from lost manufacturing, industry, energy and agriculture?
Addition: See Reason’s comments. Aren’t there deeper economic analyses?
***See Also: Virginia Postrel’s piece at Bloomberg. Are we making two types of American city, or have everyday Joes just stopped going to San Francisco and New York, and those cities are hollowing out to become the centers of trade, finance, and commerce they’ve always been. The European vision of the city overlooks real economic growth: ‘How The Elites Built America’s Wall‘
If you have a few minutes, it might be worth checking out Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappo’s online, putting $350 million of his own money into downtown Las Vegas to change the city. From his original company LinkExchange which he sold, to Zappo’s customer focused business model, to Las Vegas itself, Hsieh is after scalability of interaction. He wants to create a live/work environment that puts people densely enough to continue urban growth and human interaction.
At least he’s putting up his own money to achieve his vision: