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MySpace Pwns Facebook. Long Live MySpace. (pg. 4)
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| DigiNut |
I read those articles from/about Richard Florida but I don't see anywhere where he mentions non-ethnic (sorry - "cultural") diversity. He talks about everybody being from different parts of the world, gay professionals, good business landscape, yadda yadda yadda... that's all true, but it's on a different axis from what I said earlier.
Unless you can point me to something specific he's said that contradicts what I said (I'm not being lazy, I did actually read it all, I'm just not seeing what you're seeing).
Isn't "creative class" just a euphemism for "trend followers", anyway? |
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| SuperJimbo |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
Isn't "creative class" just a euphemism for "trend followers", anyway? |
I don't think so. The opposite, in fact. Florida defines the creative class as those whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and new creative content. Members include professionals such as scientists, engineers, architects, educators, writers, artists, and entertainers, and who share common characteristics, such as creativity, individuality, diversity, and merit.
Think about it. How do you have a creative class without ideological or intellectual diversity? I don't see how it is posssible.
Toronto may not be the most ideological or intellectually diverse jusridiction in the world, but it is certainly in the top tier and rising, don't you think? |
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| DigiNut |
Okay, I guess I misunderstood the term.
Anyway, Jimbo - I hear you, but saying that this so-called "creative class" exists, even in large numbers, is very different from saying that most people are in it. My generalization was, well, a generalization, which I think still applies to the majority. Toronto has a pretty large population so it doesn't seem that unusual to me to have a lot of entrepeneurs and idea people while still having an absolutely massive number of drones and sheep.
I do not believe that said class exists due to forced ethnic diversity or multi-culti policies. I think it exists in spite of that.
Who knows, maybe I'm generalizing based on the wrong places (this forum, for instance. :p). |
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| SuperJimbo |
Cool. I hear ya.
As a reference point, Florida estimates that the US has 38 million members of the creative class (i.e. approx. 30 percent of the U.S. workforce). Not just entrepreneurs remember, but scientists, engineers, architects, educators, writers, artists, and entertainers.
I think ethnic diversity is important in our (Toronto's) case, as it provides us with a population with so many different lenses from which we view the world. I have never been to another city in the world, or heard of another city for that matter, which so seemlessly integrates so many different ethnic groups -- including NYC or London. The significant gay population is also a positive marker for our city's overall temperament and openess to new ideas, IMO.
TA, in all its wacky glory, is a perfect place to test new ideas. Almost nothing seizes to amaze me around here anymore...hahaha. :wtf: :p:haha: |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by SuperJimbo
I think ethnic diversity is important in our (Toronto's) case, as it provides us with a population with so many different lenses from which we view the world. I have never been to another city in the world, or heard of another city for that matter, which so seemlessly integrates so many different ethnic groups -- including NYC or London. The significant gay population is also a positive marker for our city's overall temperament and openess to new ideas, IMO. |
I wouldn't really say that Toronto has such seamless integration. It's really very balkanized, you have entire communities of people that don't speak a word of English, which are often associated with poverty and/or high crime rates.
Sure, go to Woodbridge or the east Danforth and you'll see great examples of well-integrated subcultures. Go to Lawrence Heights, on the other hand, which is near where I live, and you'll see something quite... different.
As for the gays, I'm not sure if I believe that homosexuality really correlates with openness to new ideas. If you consider that preference to be a new idea in and of itself, then perhaps it's true, but also self-defeating. It does seem that gays tend to lean on the political left, but that's hardly a source of real diversity in Toronto.
Don't think I don't know where you're coming from - you and Mr. Florida are both looking in awe at all of the great economic factors in Toronto. I'm with you on those, but there are some very negative political factors that accompany them. |
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| SuperJimbo |
| quote: | Originally posted by DigiNut
I wouldn't really say that Toronto has such seamless integration. It's really very balkanized, you have entire communities of people that don't speak a word of English, which are often associated with poverty and/or high crime rates.
Sure, go to Woodbridge or the east Danforth and you'll see great examples of well-integrated subcultures. Go to Lawrence Heights, on the other hand, which is near where I live, and you'll see something quite... different.
As for the gays, I'm not sure if I believe that homosexuality really correlates with openness to new ideas. If you consider that preference to be a new idea in and of itself, then perhaps it's true, but also self-defeating. It does seem that gays tend to lean on the political left, but that's hardly a source of real diversity in Toronto.
Don't think I don't know where you're coming from - you and Mr. Florida are both looking in awe at all of the great economic factors in Toronto. I'm with you on those, but there are some very negative political factors that accompany them. |
Apologies. "Seemless" was the entirely the wrong word. I guess I meant it in a relative sense. I live and work in downtown TO, in the Queen West area, and am constantly amazed by the diversity of the area. I compare this to the 11 other cities I have lived in during my lifetime (my father was a pilot in the Air Force), and I have to tell you, no city in Canada compares to Toronto, with the exeption of maybe Montreal. Not even close.
With respect to the gay population in Toronto, again, I should have been more careful with my words. In the The Rise of the Creative Class, Florida says:
"Cities and regions that attract lots of creative talent are also those with greater diversity and higher levels of quality of place. That's because location choices of the creative class are based to a large degree on their lifestyle interests, and these go well beyond the standard "quality-of-life" amenities that most experts think are important.
For instance, in 1998, I met Gary Gates, then a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon. While I had been studying the location choices of high-tech industries and talented people, Gates had been exploring the location patterns of gay people. My list of the country's high-tech hot spots looked an awful lot like his list of the places with highest concentrations of gay people. When we compared these two lists with more statistical rigor, his Gay Index turned out to correlate very strongly to my own measures of high-tech growth. Other measures I came up with, like the Bohemian Index---a measure of artists, writers, and performers---produced similar results.
Talented people seek an environment open to differences. Many highly creative people, regardless of ethnic background or sexual orientation, grew up feeling like outsiders, different in some way from most of their schoolmates. When they are sizing up a new company and community, acceptance of diversity and of gays in particular is a sign that reads "non-standard people welcome here."
The creative class people I study use the word "diversity" a lot, but not to press any political hot buttons. Diversity is simply something they value in all its manifestations. This is spoken of so often, and so matter-of-factly, that I take it to be a fundamental marker of creative class values. Creative-minded people enjoy a mix of influences. They want to hear different kinds of music and try different kinds of food. They want to meet and socialize with people unlike themselves, trade views and spar over issues."
Is that a bit more clear? I guess I was using the sizable gay population in Toronto as a marker for a city that is generally (and relatively) more open to differences. |
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| Spike |
| myspace makes my computer freeze. facebook wins |
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| pete242 |
I used to use MySpace all the time, but it has seriously bored me and showed me that I don't really know anyone on there. Corporations sunk their claws into it and now it is just what I expected it to be.
Facebook needs to stick to being the presence it is but in it's most humble of approaches which is why I think it works so well here in Toronto. We are definately a city on the rise but still a humble place to be compared to places like L.A, Vegas, NYC or even Miami. |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by SuperJimbo
Is that a bit more clear? I guess I was using the sizable gay population in Toronto as a marker for a city that is generally (and relatively) more open to differences. |
Hm, it's interesting. I believe that this kind of diversity/acceptance does correlate with high-tech industry, successful businesses, etc. Certainly the evidence seems to suggest it.
Have to be careful of correlations, though. Sometimes correlation is all you care about (i.e. if you're trying to decide where to start a business). It'd be interesting to see the multi-culti experiment tried on a small city though, because I think both of the points above - diversity and business (creative class) - are natural consequences of a large, reasonably dense city, especially one with navigable waterways. The principle may work in reverse; that is, people from different backgrounds all want to immigrate to a successful city and the city becomes more "accepting" as a logical consequence.
This is also a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy; that is, if a lot of entrepeneurs and members of so-called creative class believe this correlation to be true, then they will flock to said cities and make it true, even if it isn't intrinsically true. It's a really difficult issue to analyze in that respect. I think that if we saw a sudden explosion of the gay community in, say, Sudbury, it wouldn't automatically become a hot spot for creativity and high-tech industry.
My question is - how does the size of the creative class correlate with the size of the hipster population? |
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| DarkAngel |
| quote: | Originally posted by SuperJimbo
Given how every single person I know in Toronto never shuts up about facef&@^*#@#&%@&%&#^%#book, this doesn't surprise me. Strange.
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LOL!!!
Each one has its respective pros and cons. I use both and that's all I gotta say about that hehe. |
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