Richard Florida (Rise of the Creative Class) Moving to Toronto

[ShonTron]

I'm thinking of cashing in and coining the phrase "Hipster Index" and writing about that, plagarizing Florida's works and getting Matt Blackett to do the book design work (and write 25 posts on Spacing to try to sell it to all the cool kids out there).

I thought of it first.

 

[Observer Walt]

Be sure to publicize the launch party here so that we can all go.

 

[ShonTron]

While a date has yet to be confirmed, a venue has: the Gladstone.

 

[Urban Shocker]

If Florida is correct - as he pontificates from his well-endowed perch - then Toronto's downtown is well placed to accommodate the legions of dispossessed suburbanites who will swarm here, given how many vacant postage stamp sized units Flipper and his pals have stockpiled for rental and resale during the condo-building boom.

 

[Archivist]

I thought the Atlantic article was underwhelming. I always feel guilty because as a Torontonian, a homo, and an urbanist I would think I would be a natural to be inspired by Florida's message, but he leaves me so cold. In the end, I find more sense out of James Howard Kunster, the pessimist and the likely homophobe. So be it.

I don't mind seeing the cover of a major magazine touting Toronto though, can't hurt.

 

[ShonTron]

The problem is that the issue sold in Canada has Toronto on the cover, in California, San Francisco, and the rest of the US, New York. It's nice to see, but Florida really doesn't do it for me. I especially enjoyed John Fetterman's little dig at Florida at U of T last week.

(Just to be sure, I was being very tongue-in-cheek about the hipster index book and Spacing)

 

[Archivist]

I actually bought the magazine in Beijing, and Toronto was on the cover there.

 

[Hipster Duck]

I think that Richard Florida is overrated but I liked his article in The Atlantic. His defense of New York was surprisingly level-headed and balanced, while the decimation of the Sunbelt - which was never a wealthy region, just an Atlantic Canada with a massive credit card -is happening right before our eyes. Typically, though, Florida is one of those urban theorists who is banking on his own prophesy to fulfill itself. He is no different from Kunstler in this regard, except that he's an optimist rather than a pessimist.


This however:

But then the realization hits me that it isn't for love of traffic that so many millions of North Americans have moved out to the suburbs: They're looking for big houses, little leagues, decent schools and an opportunity to raise large families. And yes, they know all about the wonderful creative people (gay or otherwise) they could be rubbing elbows with if only they slapped down half-a-million for a charming downtown row house, put their kids in bunk beds and commuted by bike to their dot-com ad agency. It just so happens that this isn't the life they want.

is bollocks. David Brooks - who otherwise is my favourite New York Times columnist - trots this defense of suburbia out every couple of years and it never ceases to be stale on delivery. He even coined the term "patio man" to describe the ethereal everyman of the cul-de-sac (no such person really exists), who settles in the suburbs to enjoy the creature comforts of low density backyard living. Of course, people's motivations are much more complex and often people find themselves living in suburbia not out of choice, but out of necessity. Actually, the idea that our living arrangements are largely a matter of personal choice and not imposed by outside structures is a common failing of both Richard Florida types and people like this hack from the NP.

 

[Whoaccio]

Kay's article is mostly right. It isn't meant to be a critism of "urban living" or something, I'm pretty sure at several points he states his preference for it. It is meant to be a criticism of the self congratulatory nature of R. Florida. I would have more respect for Florida if he had, say, taken up a job in Sandy, Utah and tried to convince the locals that life in downtown Salt Lake is the way to live. Instead he goes to places like Toronto, New York and Washington, places whose economic realities provide a fair number of "urban jobs" (mainly financial...) and basically tells people that they were right. Quite apart from the urban vs. suburban debate, he serves more to validate urbanites than to actually make the case for urban living to suburbanites.

EDIT: If Florida were serious about convincing people about the benefits of urban living, he would take more time to actually ask why the suburbs consistently outgrow stagnant, or even declining, central cores. As it is he just sort of leaves as "they haven't seen the light" or they aren't "creative."

 

[Archivist]

Actually, the idea that our living arrangements are largely a matter of personal choice and not imposed by outside structures is a common failing of both Richard Florida types and people like this hack from the NP.

What an astute comment. In my mind, nothing else other than Hipster's note is necessary in this debate, and I couldn't agree more.

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

Actually, the idea that our living arrangements are largely a matter of personal choice and not imposed by outside structures is a common failing of both Richard Florida types and people like this hack from the NP.

I think you are far too dismissive of personal choice as a determinant for living arrangements. Like any examination of people and their decisions, there are many factors, and the weight given to individual factors varies from person to person. Some people place a priority on where to live, some place a priority on the type of house, some require access to transit and some do not, etc., and thus decisions are made. I would posit that most people take an aggregate of what they desire in terms of physical demands (size, location, type of housing) and weigh that against cost, and whatever other outside requirements. Whatever they determine meets their needs sufficiently wins. I should note that there are always those extremes (those requiring assisted living, social housing, and those wealthy few) that are not subject to that sort of consideration.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Almost no one chooses suburbia as a result of desiring suburbia. The myth that they do...well, is a myth. For instance, the typical backyard in the Annex is both larger and more idyllic than the Scarborough yards I'm used to. Most North Americans are born in suburbia these days...soon, most people in the world will have been born and raised in suburbia.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Like any examination of people and their decisions, there are many factors, and the weight given to individual factors varies from person to person...I would posit that most people take an aggregate of what they desire in terms of physical demands (size, location, type of housing) and weigh that against cost, and whatever other outside requirements. Whatever they determine meets their needs sufficiently wins.

When you analyze them, so-called personal "choices" are largely pre-determined by the socio-economic environment we find ourselves in. For example, few people ultimately make the "choice" to go to university, or start a family, or choose the place they work, or marry someone from the same socio-cultural background. If there are choices available it is between two or three candidates among a small range of possibilities, rather than from an infinite number of diverse possibilities.

Choosing a place to live is no different and is, indeed, a product of these constraints. When I was looking for a place to live in Toronto several years ago, it was inevitable that I would have ended up living where I did, off the Danforth on Broadview. For starters, I knew someone living in the apartment tower so I had some confidence in the building (the fear of negligent landlords is, in a sense, a limiter of choice); secondly, being a university-educated, young, single, knowledge economy worker put me in a frame of mind where I felt I had earned the access to certain levels of material comfort while simultaneously confronting the realities of my paycheck. Of course, it's easy to be critical about such a subjective value-judgment, but we're all guilty of doing this at least once in our lives. Finally, there is the reality that when you look for a place to live you are restricted to what is actually available on the market.

When it comes to making choices in a free market we are like chess pieces on a board. From a game-perspective, there are an almost infinite combination of moves and the end of the game can take place under an infinite number of possibilities. But as individual chessmen, we are severely bounded by the rules of the game and can only move in a very finite number of ways across the board.

 

[Urban Shocker]

There are also tribal reasons, depending on what group you belong to - gay people who feel uncomfortable living 'out' in small towns and prefer the anonymity of dense urbanity; immigrants who settle in neighbourhoods where they can be with others from their own community; other immigrants who are attracted by the availability of undeveloped land in suburban areas where they can build homes that meet the spatial requirements of cultures based around large extended families; or the tribe with a 1950s mentality that sees the suburban dream as every bit as relevant to their needs as the downtown tribe sees living where they do as the only sensible option, etc.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Almost no one chooses suburbia as a result of desiring suburbia. The myth that they do...well, is a myth. For instance, the typical backyard in the Annex is both larger and more idyllic than the Scarborough yards I'm used to. Most North Americans are born in suburbia these days...soon, most people in the world will have been born and raised in suburbia.

Loads of families that I grew up with in a central Scarborough mid-rise and know personally who all moved to the eastern suburbs (mostly Pickering) did exactly that. That is, they purposely moved to the suburbs because to move the other way (towards the central city) would be seen as getting into some shady territory. They either see it as too crime-ridden (patently false, of course), too dirty, "too many crackheads and weirdos" (my own family's sad, sad words), and so on and so on.

Don't look at me, I think they're all mental.

But each one of these families (with the exception of my parents who moved to exurban Pickering to start a farm) WANTED TO...nay, aspired to live the suburban life.

They're out there, don't you worry. They're scary but they're real.