From: john eger <jeger@mail.sdsu.edu>
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:39:38 -0800
Forging a Creative Community for the New Creative
Economy
Feb 17, 2006 By John Eger
Creating a twenty-first-century city is not so
much a question of technology
as it is of jobs, dollars and quality of life. A
community's plan to reinvent
itself for the new, knowledge-based economy and
society therefore requires
educating all its citizens about this new global
revolution in the nature of
work. To succeed, cities must prepare their
citizens to take ownership of
their communities and educate the next generation
of leaders and workers to
meet the new global challenges of what is now
being termed the "Creative
Economy."
Having the most wired and wireless infrastructures
are undoubtedly important.
San Diego even commissioned a City of the Future
Committee in 1993 to make
plans to build the first fiber-optic-wired city in
the United States in the
belief that just as cities of the past were built
along waterways, railroads,
and interstate highways, the cities of the future
will be built along
"information highways" -- wired and wireless
information pathways connecting
every home, office, school, and hospital and,
through the World Wide Web,
millions of other individuals and institutions
around the world.
But at the heart of such efforts must be a
recognition of the vital roles that
art and technology play in enhancing economic
development and, ultimately,
defining a "creative community" -- a community
that exploits the vital
linkages among art, technology and commerce. A
community with a sense of
place. A community that nurtures, attracts and
holds the most creative and
innovation workers.
In recent years, people habitually have referred
to the domain in which
Internet-based communications occur as
"cyberspace," an abstract
communications space that exists both everywhere
and nowhere. But until
flesh-and-blood humans can be digitized into
electronic pulses in the same way
that computer scientists transform images and
data, the denizens of cyberspace
will have to continue living in some sort of real
physical space -- a home, a
neighborhood and a community.
The state of California in 1996 launched its
statewide Smart Communities
program, recognizing that electronic networks like
these will play an
increasingly important role in the economic
competitiveness of its
municipalities. The underlying premise of the
California initiative is that
smart communities are not, at their core,
exercises in the deployment and use
of technology, but rather active tools in the
promotion of economic
development, job growth, and higher living
standards overall. In other words,
technological propagation in smart communities is
not an end in itself, but
rather a means to a larger end with clear and
compelling benefits for
communities.
We have learned a great deal about the challenges
that cities face in a new
global "information economy," an economy based on
something other than the
production of goods and services or agriculture.
Although these basic
industries continue, the new economy relies on the
production, use, and
transfer of information and knowledge.
In fact, one distinct possibility is that cities
of the future will not be
cities in the usual sense, but rather powerful
regional economies. Kenichi
Ohmae, author of The Borderless World (1999,)
suggests we are witnessing the
resurgence of the age-old concept of the
city-state or, as he prefers, the
"region-state." The new region-state has the power
and authority to take
ownership of its own future and establish a
governing process reflecting a new
model of government for the digital age.
Civic engagement and new civic "collaboratories"
(collaborative projects and
endeavors) will also be needed to help reinvent
our great cities to reclaim
the sense of place and civic pride this once
possessed, as well as to ensure
that no one is left behind. In The Magic of
Dialogue: Transforming Conflict
into Cooperation (1999), Daniel Yankelovich argues
that there is a "struggle
between two one-sided visions of our future: the
vision of the free market and
the vision of the civil society." Citizens need to
create the "social
capital," that distinguishes their communities,
and in the process close the
gap between the electorate and those they elect,
as Robert D. Putnam put it in
his seminal work Bowling Alone (2000).
Cities of the future no doubt will be "creative
communities" in the sense that
they recognize art and technology as vital, not
only to a region's livability,
but also to the preparedness of its workforce.
Future cities will understand
that a basic understanding of the role of
technology as a tool of
transformation, and that art-infused education is
critical to producing the
next generation of leaders and workers for the
knowledge economy. Today, the
demand for creativity has outpaced the ability of
most nations to produce
enough workers simply to meet their needs.
Worrying about the lack of qualified workers in
this day and age may sound
odd. With the globalization of media and markets
in full bloom, America, for
example, is beginning to see the outlines of yet
another out-migration of
jobs, unleashing new concerns about rising
unemployment. Many economists are
alarmed that the latest round of losses -- unlike
the earlier shift of
manufacturing jobs to Taiwan and less-developed
East Asian countries -- will
have a dramatic impact on America's wealth and
well-being.
Twenty years ago, it was fashionable to blame
foreign competition and cheap
labor markets abroad for the loss of U.S.
manufacturing jobs, but the pain of
the loss was softened by the emergence of a new
services industry. Now that
the service sector has also widely automated
itself, banking, insurance, and
telecommunications firms are eliminating layers of
management and
infrastructure.
The traditional corporate pyramid is disappearing
replaced by highly skilled
professional work teams. State-of-the art software
and telecommunications
technologies now enable any kind of enterprise to
maximize efficiency and
productivity by employing foreign workers wherever
they are located, making
the service-sector jobs even more precious.
Forrester Research Inc., a
market-research firm, estimates some 3.3 million
service jobs will move out of
the United States over the next 10-15 years.
Others put that number at 15
million, and say the results will be devastating
for the U.S. economy.
While CEOs, economists and politicians are telling
us that these are
short-term adjustments, it is clear that the
pervasive spread of the Internet,
digitization, and the availability of white-collar
skills abroad mean
potentially huge cost savings for global
corporations. Consequently, this
shift of high-tech service jobs will be a
permanent feature of economic life
in the 21st century -- but this does not
necessarily mean the news is all bad
for workers in the United States and other
developed countries.
Some economists believe that globalization and
digitization will improve the
profits and efficiency of American corporations
and set the stage for the next
big growth-generating breakthrough. But what will
that be?
A number of think tanks, including Japan's Nomura
Research Institute, argue
that the elements are in place for the advance of
the Creative Age, a period
in which free, democratic nations thrive and
prosper because of their
tolerance for dissent, respect for individual
enterprise, freedom of
expression, and recognition that innovation, not
mass production of low-value
goods and services, is the driving force for the
new economy.
The new economy's demand for creativity has
manifested itself in the emergence
and growth of what author Richard Florida has
termed the Creative Class.
Although Florida defines this demographic group
very broadly, he does a
convincing job of underscoring the facts of life
and work in the new knowledge
economy. As he points out, "every aspect and every
manifestation of creativity
-- cultural, technological and economic -- is
inextricably linked."
By tracking certain migration patterns and trends,
Richard Florida did a huge
service for those struggling to redefine their
communities for the new
knowledge economy. However, many questions remain.
Can the community, through
public art or cultural offerings, enhance the
creativity of its citizens? And
if the new economy so desperately demands the
creative worker and leader, what
should schools and universities do to prepare the
next generation of creative
people?
I first realized that we were doing something
fundamentally wrong in K-12
education when I was asked in 1996 to chair
California's then-governor Pete
Wilson's Commission on Information Technology.
About the same time, the
governor had a subcommittee on education
technology, which I also chaired.
Participating in that effort were such luminaries
as one of the founders of
the personal computer industry, Alan Kay; Larry
Ellison, founder and chairman
of Oracle Corporation; Joanne Kosburg, former
president of Californians for
the Arts and a secretary of state and consumer
affairs under Wilson; and Jeff
Berg, Chairman and CEO of International Creative
Management Inc.
Early on in our deliberations Larry Ellison
suggested our goal should be "to
put a personal computer in the backpack of every
K-12 student by the year
2001." It was a big, startling idea and captured
everyone's attention
regarding the enormity of our task. California in
1996 was about fiftieth
among the 50 states in computers per pupil.
But Alan Kay shouted across the room, "Would you
give five pencils to a
school, Larry?" The computer, Alan argued, was
nothing more than a pencil.
What about the paper? he asked, and more
importantly, what about the ideas
that must come when we ask the student to put
pencil to paper? Our challenge,
he said, was to better understand how students
learn, what they needed to
learn to survive and succeed in today's knowledge
economy, and what our
teachers in private and public learning
institutions were doing about it.
Later that year I was asked to meet with a senior
vice president of the Los
Angeles-based Alliance of Motion Picture and
Television Producers, who were
asking Governor Wilson to "declare a state of
emergency" to help Hollywood
find digital artists. Silicon Valley, we learned,
also wanted the governor to
lobby Washington for more foreign visas for the
same reason. There were people
aplenty who were computer literate, they claimed,
but could not draw. In the
new economy, they argued, artistic talents are
vital to all industries
dependent upon the marriage of computers and
telecommunications.
Sadly, we discovered that art and music had been
cut out of most California
schools over 20 years ago in our zeal to be number
one in the world in math
and science. At the time this decision was made
the United States was about
eleventh in the world according to the
Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development. Now, the United States ranks
about 24th in the world while
Singapore, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the
top 10 in part because they
have found a way to underscore the linkages
between music and math, art and
science.
Until recently, there has been only limited
evidence of the connection between
education and in appreciation of the arts and
success in the postindustrial
age of information. But now it is becoming
increasingly apparent that arts
initiatives will be the hallmarks of the
most-successful schools and
universities and, in turn, the most-successful and
vibrant
twenty-first-century cities and regions. One key
to this vision is that we
must acknowledge the current out-migration of
high-tech jobs as a challenge to
the status quo. As former Hewlett-Packard CEO
Carly Fiorina told a panel of
governors a short time ago, "Keep your tax
incentives and highway
interchanges; we will go where the highly skilled
people are."
Those communities placing a premium on cultural,
ethnic, and artistic
diversity, reinventing their knowledge factories
for the creative age, and
building the new information infrastructures for
our age, will likely burst
with creativity and entrepreneurial fervor. These
are the ingredients so
essential to developing and attracting the bright
and creative people to
generate new patents and inventions, innovative
world-class products and
services, and the finance and marketing plans to
support them. Nothing less
will ensure a city's economic, social, and
political viability in the
twenty-first century.
John M. Eger, Van Deerlin Professor of
Communications at San Diego State
University, was chair of Governor Wilson's first
Commission on Information
Technology. He is editor of The Smart Communities
Guidebook, released by The
State of California (1997), and the recent author
of The Creative Community
published by SDSU. This article was excerpted and
adapted from the March /
April issue of The Futurist, published by The
World Futurist Society.
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John M. Eger
Van Deerlin Chair of Communication and Public
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Communications
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