In 2002 some dude named Richard Florida wrote a book called
The Rise of the Creative Class. Clearly a late delivery from the 1990s, the book argued that cities like Portland, Austin, and Seattle were the future economic engines of the nation. It wasn't just about high-tech, he argued, it was about the ethos that went along with it - socially liberal, culturally creative ways of living that made these cities global leaders, whereas cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh stagnated because of their inability to follow suit.
I was never sure if I bought totally his ideas, but they were intriguing. Well, Florida has a new book out, entitled The Flight of the Creative Class. Whereas the earlier book was optimistic, this book is pessimistic. Florida sees a brain drain beginning as the US slides into the Dark Ages of theocracy, intolerance, and xenophobia. It's chilling reading, apparently.
The Stranger (Seattle alt weekly, the one that broke the story about Microsoft's surrender to the forces of hate) has a great interview with Florida. I've excerpted some of it below, and add some ideas afterward.
Stranger: Your book deals with conservative policies set by our publicly elected leaders. Now Microsoft, a private sector leader, has caved. Is the conservative mood in this country worse than you imagined?
Florida: Yes. This [action by Microsoft] feeds the perception of America being intolerant. It's sad one of our companies is feeding into this process. They said to themselves, "Instead of doing what we think is the right thing, we're just not going to do anything, because doing nothing is not necessarily a bad thing."
Conservative activists [the American Family Association] have gotten Proctor and Gamble to pull all of its advertising from shows like Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. In that sense the intolerance agenda is worse than I imagined.
I was just with a group of top-ranking people from the Netherlands, and we were talking about the United States being viewed in the world as a much less tolerant and open place. The problem is, you can say, okay, these restrictions on immigrants are one thing if it's homeland security, but when you do that and you move backward on gay rights, you're viewed by the world as being a place that lost its way as an open and tolerant country.
Remember, Florida's thesis in 2002 was that open and tolerant cities attracted global talent, making those cities economic leaders, prosperity generators. But if national and state politicians are overshadowing this - remember, no American city has more power than state and federal governments - then those cities' advantages are neutralized.
Stranger: Your book opens with a quote by Albert Einstein, who fled to America in the 1930s to escape Nazi Germany: "As long as I have any choice in the matter, I will live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule." If Einstein were a gay software designer in America today, would he leave?
Florida: America now is like Europe in the late '20s. We're on a slippery slope. We see scientists leaving because of stem cell research. 2008 is the banner year. If we get a president like Santorum, that's when you'll see the tide really turn. Many thoughtful people in science and technology and entertainment, thoughtful people across America, are already thinking about their exit strategy.
"Like Europe in the late '20s." I've been saying to friends that we're living in Weimar America, and it's really frightening to hear Florida echo that thinking. I love this country, and I would hate to see it go the way of Germany in the 1930s.
I'm going to skip Florida's insightful comments about the Republicans - go to the article itself to read those - and cut to the chase: his comments about Democrats:
Stranger: You say Democrats are at fault for this too.
Florida: Yes. My critics on the labor left of the Democratic Party have now become neo-conservative--those folks are saying, "Who cares about immigrants, who cares about artists and musicians, who cares about the gay and lesbian community? What the Democratic Party has to do is go back and get the NASCAR dad." That's crazy. They ignore the issues which I'm telling you are the critical issues. I mean, what the United States faces is not just a trade and budget gap. What the United States faces is a huge talent deficit, because we've ignored the creative energy of our own people.
This helps me crystallize my own thinking on immigration. Immigration is an issue that can, and probably will, divide our party. You even see some folks on this very site echo the ill-informed, hateful ideas of someone like Lou Dobbs. But I've always thought that the Kossacks who have been seduced by that dark side were just ignorant, maybe a bit racist, or insecure in their white middle age.
But Florida suggests that it's about culture and class. I would be someone Florida would consider a "cultural creative," and he is right that I am most at home in cities that are hospitable to such folks. There's a reason I've never lived off of the Pacific Coast and why I hope I never will have to move.
I think it's my valuation of a global society, of a diverse society, that is at the root of my skepticism about the immigration paranoia. Sure, my academic values of logic, proof, evidence, and common sense help (nobody's ever produced evidence that immigration actually harms the US in any way), but my reaction to Kossacks who have drunk Lou Dobbs' kool-aid is more visceral than that.
And now I understand why. I believe that Democrats who go in for this immigration paranoia are selling me out, my values out, even though I'm at least a fourth-generation American. They're buying into an ethos that is xenophobic and closed-minded. They're giving aid and comfort to the Republican assault on the American metropolitan experience - an experience that is dizzying yet wonderful in its complexity, its diversity, its creativity, its opportunity.
I could have chosen to make my extended comments on gay rights, or women's rights, or many other issues, and hopefully folks can chime in there as well. But I think Florida makes a potentially crucial insight for all of us who do value an open, egalitarian, non-racist, global society, and that is that there is more than just cultural creativity and social justice to be won in defending gay rights, women's rights, immigrant rights - there are tangible economic benefits to being a social liberal. America's economic future lies in maintaining an open and tolerant society. Without that society, all that lies in our future is feudalism.
There are other cities I could go to. Vancouver BC is nearby, and nice - but the bar scene sucks. London is amazing, but amazingly expensive. I don't know the language in Rome or Barcelona. Mazatlan is too touristed. No, I'd like to stay in Seattle, in San Francisco, in LA - and I'd like other American cities to become more like them, not less so. I'd like these cities to maintain their place at the head of human society, human innovation - not be held down by the troglodytes of our meaner natures.