A Very Creative Event
Tuesday evening, I attended a lecture by
Richard Florida, author of the new book,
The Rise of the Creative Class, which you can get a taste of via this
March 2002 article in Washington Monthly.
The topics addressed, although targeted at making changes in urban planning, are quite relevant to customer behavior, since it is customer behavior that ultimately defines how society will react to different conditions in the way it lives and works.
There are a number of his other articles published on the Web, including
Where are you on the Talent Map?, from the January, 2001 issue of Fast Company, and
The New American Dream, from the March 2003 issue of
Washington Monthly.
Some will undoubtedly find some of Dr. Florida's content controversial, but I was quite impressed with the presentation and the core idea that for a local city economy to grow and prosper, there needs to be a combination of technology, talent and tolerance. He uses this foundation to present a dramatic blueprint for changing the way cities and the people in them plan for the future.
My fear for Phoenix is that the old ways of thinking are so entrenched in the power structure, even to the point of statutes and tax laws that limit the potential for change that it will be a long time before the promise is realized here.
While such steps as a Light Rail (long overdue) and support for the arts downtown are necessary, the third leg, tolerance, threatens to become the fly in the ointment. I was impressed, though, to see the Orpheum full this evening and an audience engaged in a passionate interaction with those on the stage.
Any grassroots effort has to start at, yes, the grassroots. I thought that Dr. Michael Crow of ASU ended the discussion on the most realistic note with his observation that these ideas should be the foundation for a fundamental change in the economic models that have defined modern society. Because these ideas where capital comes before people, and people are less than things are so wrong, they must change.
Change is good.
