Mayor players

It's becoming clearer everyday that  the real action in the global economy lies not in nation-states but in its mega-regions.  So it's no surprise that cities are attracting a new, smarter and savvier lineup of political leaders.  And, with Washington DC's political and chattering class essentially bereft of new ideas, the axis of policy innovation has shifted to the mayors.  You know the zetgeist has shifted when The Nation, the magazine which takes to policy-pulse of the national liberal left, has a cover story on a mayor. Not just any mayor, but Mayor Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City, Utah.

"Largely because of his policies around global warming and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions locally, in 2005 Anderson was honored with a World Leadership Award in the category of environmental work. ... The Salt Lake City mayor has also changed the way city officials interact with their constituents, making his administration one of the most accessible in the country. ...Anderson has restructured the city's criminal justice system and, suspicious of the tenets of the war on drugs, thrown the Just Say No DARE program out of the city's schools. Instead of pushing for more and more low-end offenders to be sent to jail or prison, he has built one of the country's most innovative restorative justice programs, for which he was nominated for a second World Leadership Award... Mental health courts now channel mentally ill criminals into mandatory treatment programs rather than dumping them behind bars; a misdemeanor drug court similarly replaces punishment with treatment; and the city now has one of the most active victim-offender reconciliation programs in America....On other fronts, Anderson has gone out on a limb to defend gay rights and has been an outspoken opponent of wholesale sweeps against illegal immigrants.  And last but not least, he has repeatedly taken on big developers, from "sprawl mall" advocates to those in favor of unregulated suburban growth in the large Salt Lake Valley region..." More here.

And mayors are moving up to higher office. In my own region, Martin O'Malley outgoing mayor of Baltimore has just been elected governor of Maryland; and Tim Kaine, former mayor of Richmond is governor of Virginia.

And could it be that two New York City will throw their hats in for the Republican nomination in 08. It's pretty clear that Rudy is running. Now according to a New York Magazine cover story, it looks as if Michael Bloomberg is contemplating his chances as well. It's always struck me as a sign of the times that Bloomberg ran for mayor in the first place. Remember NYC is a city that was not-so-long ago driven into bankruptcy and lorded over by nut-balls like Ed Koch. Why would someone like Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire entrepreneur who built an entire industry around the convergence of information and finance, want such a job? Could it be that he runs one of the most powerful economies in the world.  Being President is probably the only thing that could interest him now.

Interesting trend, isn't it, that mayors are becoming serious players and key innovators in the global economy.

Neo-conservatives and Cities

I'm struck by how many commentators these days see neo-conservatism as a foreign policy framework, when its roots are really in a right-tilting critique of urban policy and of urbanism itself. So many of  neo-conservatism's founding fathers, arrayed around the journal, The Public Interest, cut their teeth writing diatribes against 60s-style urban policy and against cities themselves. Edward Banfield's The Unheavenly City was a rallying point. It included an incredulous chapter called (I kid you not) "Rioting for Fun and Profit." The Public Interest published infamous articles like "The City as a Reservation," and "The City as a Sandbox,"  which argued that cities had become places where the poor and marginalized should be wharehoused.  Others offered prescriptions of "benign neglect," arguing that cities would come back only after prolonged disinvestment.  Current day neo-con anti-urbanism runs the gamut - from the Manhattan Institute, its City Journal, and the diatribes of Steven Malanga; to the back-to-basics style neo-conservatism of  Fred Siegel and Joel Kotkin, who take it upon themselves to regularly bash some of America's best urban mayors and blame "yuppies, sophistos, trendoids and gays" for exacerbating social cleavages,  to the more sophisticated "suburbs are where the action is" musings of David Brooks.

A new essay by Jeremy Adam Smith outlines what he calls,  "The Right's Vision of an America without Cities." 

"Millions of rural people have come to reject the larger framework of urban life," writes  Brian Mann ... "They despise the liberal modernism that shaped metro culture in the twentieth century and see it as an ideology that is every bit as foreign and threatening as communism." ...  Antagonism towards cities ... is an under-recognized, under-analyzed factor in right-wing organizing.... Mann coins the term "homelander" to describe largely white, anti-urban conservatives, including those whose country life exists only in their imagination. ..."It's important to understand that we metros are the ones who have changed - and with remarkable speed," Mann writes, referring to egalitarian families, gay and lesbian relationships, and other practices that are a part of everyday urban life. " On a wide range of social questions, homelanders  ... believe that their way of life and their set of values offer a real alternative for the future." Read the whole thing here.

The "new" New York

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been making lot's of moves lately to ensure New York remains the world's greatest city, with efforts to ban transfat, bring talented musicians into the classroom and remake education. Now he also aims to make the city greener and more sustainable, with a concerted strategy to address what I call the "externalities" of the creative age.

According to The Economist: "To Mr Bloomberg, New York is competing—especially with London—to be one of the great cities of the 21st century, attracting the increasingly mobile and wealthy global elite. His plan addresses what he sees as the three chief challenges facing the city as it makes that transition. ... To transform New York into a “sustainable city” Mr Bloomberg has set ten goals, to be monitored by a new Sustainability Advisory Board...The goals include a massive increase in affordable housing; the pledge that every New Yorker will live within ten minutes' walk of a public park; and an overhaul of public transport, including a subway extension. Mr Bloomberg wants New York to have the cleanest air of any big city in America and to reduce emissions that contribute to global warming by 30% by 2030. And he wants to open 90% of the surrounding rivers, harbours and bays for recreation by reducing water pollution and preserving natural spaces. More here.

While Washington buries its proverbial "head" in the sand refusing to even believe the creative age is upon us, mayors like Bloomberg have become the engines of policy innovation developing new strategies not just to accelerate the transition to the creative economy but to begin to address its downsides.

Still fighting the hippies

In Rise, I called it the Big Morph and said that the most important legacy of the 60s was Silicon Valley not Woodstock as values of creativity, non-conformity and a preference for entrepreneurship over mind-numbing organization era work diffused throughout our culture. Not surprisingly these values are effecting our political identity and culture as well.

Paul Waldman writes: "The current incarnation of the culture war didn't just begin in the sixties--it is, to this day, about the '60s. That decade divided the country in two: you were either cool or square, with it or a stuffed shirt. Which side of that divide you placed yourself--whether you grew your hair long or cut it short, supported Vietnam or opposed it, thought free love would lead to the decline of civilization or thanked your lucky stars it came along while you were still young--continues to determine how people who were around at the time look at not only the '60s, but today's politics as well." Read the rest about how it plays into current day politics and the rise of Obama, here.

Chris Bowers comments: "The "culture wars" are simply another front in long-standing struggle over identity that has dominated American politics for some time. Identity remains by far a greater determining factor of how people will vote than other demographic indicators. Along with the struggles of Latino and Asian immigrants, and although to this point it is little understood, one of the great post-1960's fronts in the culture wars has become the values and posited identities of the "creative class" versus other classes. I believe that it is this division that largely explains the generally wealthy, Generation X heavy, white and highly-educated demographics of the netroots, for example. It also explains the gulf online when it comes to old political arguments about competing in the south, moving to the left, right or center, and why we seem more willing to build new institutions than work with existing ones. Those were all the big fights in the Democratic Party back in the 1960's and 1970's, with the move toward ideological coalitions, the development of single-issue advocacy infrastructure, and with the success of the Republican "Southern Strategy." Those are the political battles of the past, from the days before the "Creative Class" began to take over. We don't see those old arguments as central, and we want to get past them." More here.

And for those who want to dig a little deeper have a look at Paul Ray's prescient essay, "New Political Compass;" Ray is coauthor of the seminal book, The Cultural Creatives, here.

What do you think?

Creative Crescent

From today's Examiner:

"Gov.-elect Martin O’Malley told business leaders Thursday evening that he’s had a phone conversation this week with Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine and D.C. Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty about joint economic marketing of the region as the Chesapeake Crescent.  We know the great strengths we have in Maryland, but what we’re not as often as cognizant of is the great strengths we have when we combine with our neighbors in Virginia and D.C. as well,” ... While the three jurisdictions have cooperated on transportation and environmental issues, they have typically been fierce competitors on economic development. While the Chesapeake region has challenges with work force shortages and the transportation infrastructure, O’Malley said the principal assets are the “creative” institutions such as universities and research labs that may discover “the weapons of mass salvation” in vaccines. The Chesapeake Crescent is an evolution from the Creative Crescent O’Malley talked about occasionally in the campaign, an outgrowth of Richard Florida’s book on “The Rise of the Creative Class." More here.

 

Every human being is creative

From today's Vancouver Columbian:

"The key question," American psychologist Abraham Maslow writes, "isn't 'What fosters creativity?' But it is why in God's name isn't everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled?"

Leaders clamor for innovation. Corporations crow "cutting edge," while the creative class is being enlisted countrywide to save our cities. But Albert Einstein points out an unsettling reality: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

Intellectual fertility instead requires, philosopher Erich Fromm wrote, for people "to be puzzled. To concentrate. To accept conflict and tension. To be born everyday. To feel a sense of self."

 

Kayden on Kotkin

Harvard Design School Dean Jerry Kayden responds to Joel Kotkin's either-or urban thinking.

"To a hammer, everything is a nail. In Kotkin’s eyes, at least as expressed in his article, economically challenged cities are in trouble because city officials think Starbucks coffee is better for economic development than that available at Dunkin’ Donuts. But Dunkin’ Donuts announced recently that it is upscaling some of its coffee offerings because it realizes that working- and middle-class families also enjoy premium coffee. Kotkin’s protean cities, whether they be Atlanta, Phoenix, Orlando, Dallas, or Charlotte, are building the same museums, art centers, and other amenities that he poo-poos as yuppie accoutrements. It just turns out the meat-and-potatoes middle- and working-class Americans also have a taste for cultural nourishment. Anti-elitist Kotkin comes across as a bit patronizing, even if unintended."

Read the whole thing over at the intriguing new journal, Democracy, here.

 

Live from Savannah

A nice report here, complete with pictures, from my talk last night in Savannah, where you can feel the energy of a community in the throes of creative transformation.

America's cities, its workers and its economy are experiencing an unprecedented shift in how people earn a living. That transition already is beginning to reshape every aspect of how people live - from how they dress to where they live and when they work - but it also can foment fear, bestselling author and social theorist Richard Florida told a Savannah audience ...Thursday night.

Cities that want to thrive will have to foster open doors and open communication, not because it's the politically correct thing to do, Florida said, but because it makes economic common sense. ...  Every community has the potential to nurture its creative class and every person - regardless of age, race or income - has the ability to be creative, he said. What keeps some cities from letting the creative synergy blossom, he said, are "the squelchers,'' who cave in to negativity or who refuse to innovate.

The city has a broad-based energy across its leadership and among its citizens, Florida said, that has shown other communities how to restore historic downtown areas, build college enrollment and spur inter-governmental agreements that foster new programs such as The Creative Coast Initiative... ...

Felix Figuereo, ...general manager of Color Maria, a Web development firm, ...considers himself part of the creative class."I think there is a very strong union between government, education and business that overwhelmingly attracted me to the area,'' said Figuereo, who moved here from New York. ..."Savannah is creating a homegrown creative class.''

Chris Miller, executive director of the Creative Coast Initiative, said Florida's first book, "The Rise of the Creative Class,'' helped give Savannah its initial push toward its creative development. ... "We've got a lot of pieces of the puzzle, and we're a whole lot further along at snapping them together than most people.''

Go Jersey

Jersey lawmakers on Thursday approved the civil union bill, putting same-sex couples within a pen's stroke of acquiring the rights and benefits of marriage. At the same time, Governor Corzine and powerful legislators declared that after a law is in place, they would be open to an amendment granting gay activists what they have sought: the word "marriage" itself. In the Assembly the measure passed 56-19; in the Senate it was 23-12. Just a couple of years ago, the kind of bill we are going to pass today was unthinkable. Unthinkable!" said Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, D-Newark, a sponsor.  He acknowledged gay advocates' unhappiness with the bill but promised that he "will not rest until the word 'marriage' matters for all of us." Corzine, too, suggested that the law could change in favor of the word "marriage." Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, who last week became the first New Jersey legislator to declare his homosexuality, reminded his colleagues that "Jefferson's credo" -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- was part of "a living document." The constitution, he said, "didn't apply to women, to African-Americans, Hispanics, gays or lesbians. It evolved." Read the entire story here.

I for one am incredibly proud of my home state. And now my George Mason colleague, Tyler Cowen has one more thing to add his list of favorite things about New Jersey.

What engaged students can do

Students from Mercer College are completing a capstone project to on why creativity is key to Macon Georgia's future. The story is here