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Announcement :: Economy |
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Coletta And Company |
Current rating: 0 |
by Tom Jones
Email: TJonesMfs (nospam) aol.com (unverified!)
Phone: 901-528-0800
Address: 41 Union #2 |
06 Feb 2003
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Creative Class Summit to Develop Manifesto for Cities |
RICHARD FLORIDA ANNOUNCES CREATIVE CLASS SUMMIT
(February 6, 2003) – Best-selling author and commentator Richard Florida announced that he will host a two-day national summit in Memphis, Tennessee, to develop a manifesto for cities that want to become magnets for the “creative class.”
The Memphis Manifesto Summit May 1-2 will bring together the “Creative 100,” 100 of the best and brightest young minds in the U.S. to share their experiences and insights into business, culture, design, society, education and science, he said.
Florida said: “The Memphis Manifesto Summit will be a landmark gathering for the Creative Class and America’s cities. At the summit, 100 leaders of the Creative Class will develop a mandate for cities competing for their talents.
“The correlation between a city’s appeal to creatives and its economic prosperity is unmistakable. It is this group, through its creativity and innovation, that is determining a city’s success in the new economy. As a result, the Manifesto created at the Summit will be the definitive call to action for the future of our cities.”
Since Florida published his groundbreaking book, The Creative Class: How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life¸ he has become one of the most-quoted university professors in the nation and his work has changed the way that cities think about economic growth. The research by Florida, the H. John Heinz III Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University, has shown that creativity is a major economic force and if cities want to prosper, they must attract “creatives,” young professionals who fuel the evolving economy.
Florida, who has become the spokesperson for a generation of young, creative, professionals, said the Memphis Manifesto will be a “call to action” for mayors, county officials, governors, Congressional representatives, Senators, and civic and business leaders who want their cities to be competitive. The Creative 100 will be nominated by key influencers, and Florida.
“There is no better place for the Summit than Memphis, because it was the first city that applied my research about the Creative Class to develop recommendations for its own future,” said Florida. “Its ‘Talent Magnet Project’ set creativity as an economic priority for the city and established strategies to attract these young, creative workers.” Memphis’ blueprint – called Technology, Talent and Tolerance: Attracting the Best and Brightest to Memphis – has become a national model and has been embraced as a priority for Memphis’ government and business leaders.
More information about the Summit is available at www.memphismanifesto.com.
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See also:
http://www.memphismanifesto.com
http://www.creativeclass.org
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Re: "Creative Class" |
by ML
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
06 Feb 2003
Modified: 05:11:06 PM |
It sounds like the US's elites simply want to re-invent themselves again. I don't believe asking the wealthy for their opinions is anything different that what is already the operative model in this society, so asking them again what THEY want will change little about how the rest of us live, except perhaps for the worse, as they figure out new ways to suppress the wage levels of working people.
The whole concept of a "creative class" istelf is highly suspect. I would say, based on what I've heard so far here and in the News-Gazette when it was flacking the same concept in its pages a few months ago, is that this should actually be called the "creative who can market themseleves best" class.
The concept itself can't apply to anyhwere near all creative people. I know many creative people, but they don't make (and probably never will make) the kind of money that qualifies as the "creative class" under the terms presented above. In large part, this is because of the twisted value system of our society that is based in large part on how much money one can command in the job market. Such an economic definition of "creative" subverts the very idea of creativity into one more mutation of traditional capitalist values that vastly overvalue such work as that by marketers and mangers, while vastly undervaluing the work of those who do the jobs that really make our society work on a daily basis, such as busdrivers, teachers, and cooks. All of these people exercize creativity on a daily basis, just like most workers do.
The trend in our society to de-skill jobs feeds into the elite's delusions that they are somehow more creative than the rest of us. It just isn't so -- they simply get paid more than most of us, often for little in the way of substantive differences in creativity. |
