The Creative Economy

Daniel Pink suggests that American labor is not price competitive any more and we need to be the ones adding the essence to the product that separates it from the rest of the market. If our economy is going to rely heavily on services, information, technology and intellectual property then these enterprises need to foster greater creativity and innovation in the workforce. This economic trend can breed competition: for people, for ideas, for business and for quality of life. The ability to generate a creative economy is important in improving these assets.
The creative economy is defined as the sum of economic activity arising from a highly educated segment of the workforce encompassing a wide variety of creative individuals —like artists, architects, computer programmers, university professors and writers from a diverse range of industries such as technology, entertainment, journalism, finance, high-end manufacturing and the arts.
What obligation does local government play in stimulating a creative workforce? The logic is that attracting the “creative class” to the city would generate jobs and tax revenue and economic benefits to all citizens. Unfortunately, it appears that growth of the creative economy could exacerbate inequality and exclusion. The creative economy appears to contribute to both the renewed prosperity of a city and the inequitable social and geographic distribution of its benefits.
So what’s wrong? It has been noted that public policy promoting the creative economy can have two potentially serious flaws: one, a misperception of culture and creativity as a product of individual genius rather than collective activity; and, two, a willingness to tolerate social dislocation in exchange for urban vitality or competitive advantage.
Economic geographers are exploring production-driven cultural clusters and the social networks underpinning productivity as a method for reducing the effects of these flaws. They believe this cultural cluster perspective has the potential to meet the dual policy goals of economic equality and social inclusion.
Any investment by the city should seek to generate steady, lifetime work, that is sustainable and can balanced community needs of economic equality and social inclusion.