Richard Florida: "Today, the car plays a central role in worsening America’s social, political, and economic divides."

"I’m not trying to blame the car for everything that’s wrong in America. But it is increasingly clear that in addition to wasted time and productivity, reduced quality of life, and even fatalities, the automobile takes another toll. It may be that cars are not only the chief destroyer of our communities, but are tearing at the nation’s political and social fabric."

Lots of sensible evidence here.

How Cars Divide America, by Richard Florida (CityLab)

Car dependence not only reduces our quality of life, it’s a crucial factor in America’s economic and political divisions.

Urbanists have long looked at cars as the scourge of great places. Jane Jacobs identified the automobile as the “chief destroyer of American communities.” Cars not only clog our roads and cost billions of dollars in time wasted commuting, they are a terrible killer. They caused more than 40,000 deaths in 2017, including of some 6,000 pedestrians and cyclists.

But in the United States, the car plays a fundamental role in structuring the economy, our daily lives, and the political and social differences that separate us.

Writing from prison in the 1930s, the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci dubbed our modern economic system Fordism—invoking the system of automotive production developed by Henry Ford. On the factory floor, Fordism described the powerful synthesis of scientific management and the moving assembly line, which revolutionized industrial production. Applied to the economy, the term captured Ford’s move to higher pay for his workers—the famous $5-a-day wage—that enabled them to buy the cars they produced. At a broader societal level, Fordism catalyzed the shift to a mass suburbanized society.

As Ford himself once put it: “We shall solve the city problem by leaving the city.” The car enabled the American suburban dream, prompting the relocation of the middle class, industry, and business from the city. In doing so, it helped shape the relatively short-lived era of post-World War II prosperity and the rise of a stable, blue-collar middle class, stoking economic demand for the products coming off the country’s assembly lines.

But today, the car plays a central role in worsening America’s social, political, and economic divides.

This can be seen in a simple statistical-correlation analysis by my colleague and frequent collaborator Charlotta Mellander ...

"We must now rebuild America’s middle class by turning service jobs work into higher-paid, family-supporting work."

Which topic does one overhear being discussed with greater fervor, the weather or the quality of "service" recently experienced at a restaurant or retail business?

Some Southern Indiana restaurants struggle to find workers in saturated market, by Danielle Grady (Hanson Goes to Yahweh)

Other employers combat issue with high wages, opportunities

SOUTHERN INDIANA — May was the last time Cheryl Koetter had to fire someone.

The employee was abusing drugs and a liability around Cricket’s Cafe’s meat slicer. It wasn't the first incident of its kind at the Sellersburg restaurant, but not because of the drugs. Koetter's employees are often quitting unexpectedly or being fired. She's also struggling to find workers to hire.

“I’m okay right now, but I’ve been short-staffed for years,” she said grimly.

Koetter primarily blames the issue on the local workforce being unwilling to, well, work. But as the unemployment rate in Clark and Floyd counties decreases and more and more restaurants open, many, but not all, service industry employers are dealing with a smaller pool of hires.

I posted a link to the preceding on the Facebook page of the New Albany Restaurant and Bar Association, and these two comments stood out.

"They don't want to work?". Maybe they're tired of their morale being mitigated by low pay and a customer always right attitude that ensures employee dissatisfaction.

The answer to her problem is to pay more. Talent goes where the money is.

Did you know that "service workers" overall make up 45% of the nation's workforce?

Here's a view of what must happen next. Spoiler alert: it has to do with money.

The Service Class Deserves Better, by Richard Florida (CityLab)

Our nation’s future depends on our ability to provide the largest segment of our labor force with stable, family-supporting work.

More than 65 million Americans toil in precarious, low-wage service class jobs, preparing and serving us our food, assisting us in stores, supporting our office and professional work, and taking care of our kids and aging parents. The service class is the largest class of Americans by far, making up about 45% of the entire workforce. In terms of the jobs they do and the economic functions they serve, in many ways, its members represent the 21st century analog of the old blue-collar working class. And just like we upgraded those once dirty, dangerous, and low-paid manufacturing jobs during the postwar years, we must now rebuild America’s middle class by turning service jobs work into higher-paid, family-supporting work.

A new report released today by me and my Martin Prosperity Institute colleagues, Karen King and Charlotta Mellander, entitled Building 65 Million Good Jobs, outlines the size and scope of America’s service class, and describes how we can begin to upgrade their jobs.

Richard Florida and the "creative class," 15 years on.

NA Confidential was born in 2004. Until some time around 2006 or 2007, there was no mechanism on Blogger.com to tag posts with searchable labels.

Since then, the label "creative class" has appeared here only four times, most recently in 2013. By contrast, if I look back to the pre-label era, "creative class" was mentioned as many as 20 times (or more) in 2005 and 2006. Chronologically, this makes sense given that Richard Florida's original book on the topic was released circa 2002.

The point is this: both Florida's concept of a "creative class" and our discussion about it are subject to evolution. They change as conditions change, and that's what "dynamic" is all about, as contrasted with "static."

Two perspectives follow. In the first, the author is more willing to allow Florida a chance to chart the evolution of his characterization.

The Evolution Of The Creative Class, by Pete Saunders (Forbes)

When I was in college and first became politically aware, so to speak, was in the '80s when Ronald Reagan was president. Many people from that era remember that perhaps the principal economic theory driving his election in 1980 was the theory of supply side economcs, or that lower barriers on regulations would lead to more goods and services available to consumers, at a lower price. Related to supply side economics was the so-called "trickle-down" theory, meaning that lower taxes on the wealthy would have a stimulative effect on the economy -- job creators would create more jobs, greater corporate profits would result in higher worker wages. Back then, I didn't buy it because I thought the world's corporate titans would keep the profits for themselves and invest in the business, rather than people. In my opinion, that's pretty much proven to be correct.

When Richard Florida arrived on the scene some fifteen years ago with his book "The Rise of the Creative Class", he seemed to be proposing something very similar to supply-side or trickle-down economic theory. His thesis was that the cities that were thriving were doing so because of the success of those in the creative economy -- talented and educated professionals who worked in knowledge-based industries like business and finance, technology, healthcare and medicine, law, and education. He argued that cities that employed the creative class strategy, reorganizing their built environment to accommodate the needs and desires of creative class types, would find themselves stronger and more prosperous than they'd ever been, because the impact would trickle down to all sectors of the urban economy. I initially bought that idea, because after decades of people -- and money -- flowing away from cities, I believed cities needed the infusion of capital for revitalization.

How far we've all come since then.

Wetherell takes a narrower view. As for those of us here in New Albany chatting about the creative class 13 years ago, and noticing that we didn't seem to have one, I think we were doing the best we could with the evidence we had. There wasn't a politician or community "leader" with a better idea, was there?

As Jeff Gahan's putsch against affordable housing rolls forward, shouldn't we be asking: Are there any now?

Richard Florida Is Sorry, by Sam Wetherell (Jacobin)

For years, Richard Florida preached the gospel of the creative class. His new book is a mea culpa.

Richard Florida, one of the most influential thinkers about cities in postwar America, wants you to know that he got almost everything about cities wrong.

If you live in an urban center in North America, the United Kingdom, or Australia, you are living in Richard Florida’s world. Fifteen years ago, he argued that an influx of what he called the “creative classes” — artists, hipsters, tech workers — were sparking economic growth in places like the Bay Area. Their tolerance, flexibility, and eccentricity dissolved the rigid structures of industrial production and replaced them with the kinds of workplaces and neighborhoods that attracted more young people and, importantly, more investment.

His observations quickly formed the basis of a set of breezy technical solutions. If decaying cities wanted to survive, they had to open cool bars, shabby-chic coffee shops, and art venues that attract young, educated, and tolerant residents. Eventually, the mysterious alchemy of the creative economy would build a new and prosperous urban core.

Today, even Florida recognizes that he was wrong. The rise of the creative class in places like New York, London, and San Francisco created economic growth only for the already rich, displacing the poor and working classes. The problems that once plagued inner cities have moved to the suburbs ...

Taxes and "business-friendly" policies? Maybe for 1Si, but not for entrepreneurs.

Dare we delve once again into the world according to Richard Florida?

After all, I wouldn't want that Joel Kotkin exurban apologist guy coming by and egging my house.

Let's cut to the chase, all the while remembering that like so many other places, New Albany contributes to a net diaspora of talent. The talented typically move elsewhere. Those remaining here talk a lot about low taxes and business-friendly policies, and are Dixiecrats, and ...

Oops. I'm starting to see an ominous pattern.

What Cities Really Need to Attract Entrepreneurs, According to Entrepreneurs, by Richard Florida (Atlantic Cities)

... Perhaps even more interesting from the perspective of urban policy are the location factors that did not make the cut – those that high-growth entrepreneurs found to be of little consequence in their location decisions. At the very bottom of the list were taxes and business-friendly policies, which are, unfortunately, exactly the sorts of things so many states and cities continue to promote as silver bullets. Just 5 percent of the respondents mentioned low taxes as being important, and a measly 2 percent named other business-friendly policies as a factor in their location decisions.

Kotkin versus Florida.

Good reading in this point-counterpoint from the Daily Beast.

Richard Florida Concedes the Limits of the Creative Class, by Joel Kotkin

The so-called creative class of intellects and artists was supposed to remake America’s cities and revive urban wastelands. Now the evidence is in—and the experiment appears to have failed.

Did I Abandon My Creative Class Theory? Not So Fast, Joel Kotkin, by Richard Florida

Joel Kotkin says I’ve turned my back on the idea that the creative class spurs economic growth and reinvigorates cities. My response? Bollocks.

Richard Florida: "The Geography of Craft Beer."

The article is short, but interesting: The Geography of Craft Beer, by Richard Florida (The Atlantic Cities)

America has more craft beer breweries today than at any other point since 1887. Merriam-Webster added the term to their dictionary this year. Even President Obama has his own brew.

The number of breweries is increasing dramatically, according to the Brewers Association, a trade organization — just take a glance at this nifty chart on their website — and 350 more were added between June and the same time last year. Among these breweries, 97 percent are "craft brewers" — meaning they are relatively low-production, independently owned, and "interpret historic styles with unique twists and develop new styles that have no precedent."

Resisting the temptation to expound (yet again) on the teetotaling Mittled Romney's intrinsic unsuitability for high office, it's worth following the link to mull over the demographic and economic patterns.

With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, I took a quick look at how the concentration of craft breweries per capita correlates with key state demographic and economic characteristics. As usual, I point out that correlation points only to associations between variables and does not imply causation. Other factors may come into play. Still, this analysis points to a number of interesting patterns.

Income is a wash, education is good for craft beer, while religion ... not so much. Which brings us back to Mittled. Why risk the White House brewery for a Dry?