Tuesday, November 27, 2007
What Were They Thinking
A pretty interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this morning about the relative importance of families to the success of cities. I'll leave aside the overall issue. The Journal does a much better job of discussing it than I could One point, however particularly struck me:
When I read this, the first thing to occur to me was "Well, what the hell kind of retard would expect anything else?". I mean a quick walk through the East Village or South Street is going to make one thing abundantly clear before you even start doing hardcore empirical research. Your average hipster is not an investment banker or entrepreneur, but a barista, bartender or bookstore clerk. Unless they're getting money from the parents, they're poor. They're not building business for the rest of society, but hoping that society at large is generating enough wealth to attach some value to their services. I mean let's take the creme-de-la-creme of the demographic this strategy focuses on: culture workers. Well, I hate to have to break it to the likes of Ms. Granholm, but there's a reason we have the stereotypes of the starving artist, the actor working as a waiter, or the frustrated writer. These types of positions support only a few people in much beyond the meagerest circumstances. Hoping to rely on them as your engine for urban growth is roughly comparable to relying on a draft horse to win the Derby.
So, how did presumably intelligent people get locked into such a silly model? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons. The first is that such strategies are often phenomenally successful within cities, as Old City or Soho can attest. The established pioneers in urban gentrification are without question artists and hipsters. But, the success of such strategies within cities relies more on cannibalization of existing neighborhoods than it does on the creation of new wealth. Ultimately, these strategies work because the wives of investment bankers, doctors, and lawyers want to be around all the cool happenings, rather than sitting in that stuffy old Upper East Side townhouse and the actual young professionals are there hoping to score with some of the cute little hipster "chicks and dudes". This, of course, can't really work on a whole-city level. Firms aren't going to relocate so that people can get laid. Especially when the person who owns the firm and is making the decisions is married with two kids and going to be living out in Westchester or the Main Line.
A second reason gets more to a problem I see emerging with our country's leadership class. Unfortunately, I think our elites are becoming increasingly inward looking and disinclined to see anything from outside of their own contexts. As a result, they see things that reflect themselves and their own perspectives as the good, and not just good for them. It goes without saying that no small part of our leadership class prides itself as particularly cultured, sophisticated and, yes, hip. As a result, the idea of growth by coolness appeals in no small part to their self image. Why deal with lesser mortals in realm of mundane business affairs or cretins asking for parks and schools for their rugrats when you can grow by mixing it up with the beautiful people. That the mundane businessmen are the ones keeping the beautiful people afloat and that the cretins pay an order of magnitude more in taxes than the beautiful people is outside their line of vision, becuase its a perspective outside their own frame of reference.
A pretty interesting article in the Wall Street Journal this morning about the relative importance of families to the success of cities. I'll leave aside the overall issue. The Journal does a much better job of discussing it than I could One point, however particularly struck me:
For much of the past decade, business recruiters, cities and urban developers have focused on the "young and restless," the "creative class," and the so-called "yuspie"--the young urban single professional. Cities, they've said, should capture this so-called "dream demographic" if they wish to inhabit the top tiers of the economic food chain and enjoy the fastest and most sustained growth.
This focus--epitomized by Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm's risible "Cool Cities" initiative--is less successful than advertised. Cincinnati, Baltimore, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit and Memphis have danced to the tune of the hip and the cool, yet largely remain wallflowers in terms of economic and demographic growth. Instead, an analysis of migration data by my colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group shows that the strongest job growth has consistently taken place in those regions--such as Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham--with the largest net in-migration of young, educated families ranging from their mid-20s to mid-40s.
When I read this, the first thing to occur to me was "Well, what the hell kind of retard would expect anything else?". I mean a quick walk through the East Village or South Street is going to make one thing abundantly clear before you even start doing hardcore empirical research. Your average hipster is not an investment banker or entrepreneur, but a barista, bartender or bookstore clerk. Unless they're getting money from the parents, they're poor. They're not building business for the rest of society, but hoping that society at large is generating enough wealth to attach some value to their services. I mean let's take the creme-de-la-creme of the demographic this strategy focuses on: culture workers. Well, I hate to have to break it to the likes of Ms. Granholm, but there's a reason we have the stereotypes of the starving artist, the actor working as a waiter, or the frustrated writer. These types of positions support only a few people in much beyond the meagerest circumstances. Hoping to rely on them as your engine for urban growth is roughly comparable to relying on a draft horse to win the Derby.
So, how did presumably intelligent people get locked into such a silly model? Well, I think there's a couple of reasons. The first is that such strategies are often phenomenally successful within cities, as Old City or Soho can attest. The established pioneers in urban gentrification are without question artists and hipsters. But, the success of such strategies within cities relies more on cannibalization of existing neighborhoods than it does on the creation of new wealth. Ultimately, these strategies work because the wives of investment bankers, doctors, and lawyers want to be around all the cool happenings, rather than sitting in that stuffy old Upper East Side townhouse and the actual young professionals are there hoping to score with some of the cute little hipster "chicks and dudes". This, of course, can't really work on a whole-city level. Firms aren't going to relocate so that people can get laid. Especially when the person who owns the firm and is making the decisions is married with two kids and going to be living out in Westchester or the Main Line.
A second reason gets more to a problem I see emerging with our country's leadership class. Unfortunately, I think our elites are becoming increasingly inward looking and disinclined to see anything from outside of their own contexts. As a result, they see things that reflect themselves and their own perspectives as the good, and not just good for them. It goes without saying that no small part of our leadership class prides itself as particularly cultured, sophisticated and, yes, hip. As a result, the idea of growth by coolness appeals in no small part to their self image. Why deal with lesser mortals in realm of mundane business affairs or cretins asking for parks and schools for their rugrats when you can grow by mixing it up with the beautiful people. That the mundane businessmen are the ones keeping the beautiful people afloat and that the cretins pay an order of magnitude more in taxes than the beautiful people is outside their line of vision, becuase its a perspective outside their own frame of reference.
