Then: Knight Creative Communities Initiative, 2008:
Technology, Tolerance, Territory, and Talent. These four T’s are the base for building a more attractive environment for economic growth, according to Dr. Richard Florida and a growing number of other internationally known researchers.
In 2007-2008, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation in connection with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation led a process to build on these assets in the Twin Ports….
Now: Alec McGillis, “The Ruse of the Creative Class,” The American Prospect 4 January 2010.
[It] is wrong, [Florida’s former manager] says, to see any conflict in Florida’s dire pronouncements on the places that bankrolled this success, because he hadn’t promised prosperity in the first place. “He wasn’t really making prescriptions,” Frantz says. “This wasn’t Jesus Christ throwing the money men out of the temple; this was an academic. He was a fucking college professor, and you’re hoping to resurrect Canton, Ohio? Yeah, good luck with that.”
We talked a little about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative project back at its inception. Florida sounds like a classic snake-oil salesman, but I note that people who participated in the project seemed to feel it was valuable in spite of his contribution/lack thereof. I’d be interested to hear what people had to say about the project–and its broader goals of community revitalization–now.
