Return to RPA's Homepage

 
About RPA
  
  State Offices  
  Our Campaigns  
  Our History  
  The Third Regional Plan  
  RPA in the news  
  Blueprint  
  Publications  
  Upcoming Events  
  Board of Directors  
  Past Projects  
  Links  
   
  Site Map  
   
  Membership  
  Contact Information  

RE-ENGINEERING THE REGION'S CENTERS
Regional Plan Association’s
ELEVENTH REGIONAL ASSEMBLY
 Friday, April 27, 2001

Notes from Richard Florida's Keynote Address
"What's Next: Life After the New Economy"

I. Introduction

  • Thanks to RPA
  • Bob Yaro
  • Honor and privilege to be with you

Good to be home

  • Born in Newark, grew up in North Arlington
  • Mother and father worked all their lives in Newark
  • Went to Rutgers College (studied poli sc and urb planning)
  • PHD from Columbia

Key Question of our age:
What will life be like after the New Economy?

  • How this effect the global, national and regional economies
  • How will this affect real people, real workplaces, real communities
  • How will they affect your life

 Answer: Much bigger than the New Economy

  • Much more than ups and downs of NASDAQ
  • Or the latest technology fads
  • Limits of the New Economy debate
  • New Economy pundits versus New Economy cynics

Part of a broad and enduring shift in what matters to people

  • Broad shift in work, lifestyle and community
  • Building up for years, even decades

For the past several years I have been trying to get at the broad shifts in work, lifestyle, and community taking place in our society

  • Interviews, focus groups and statistics

Deep and enduring changes in the way we work and live which have been building up in our society for some time

Paul David - Look back at the Industrial Revolution

  • Not just technology, but deep, and long running changes in the organizational and institutional stuff of society
  • We are going through this kind of period today.

Key Driving Force:
 Shift from a Company-centered to a People-driven Economy

  • People are the factor of production
  • Economic growth today in the future will be shaped more by the distribution of talent than by the distribution of firms

If you don't believe me ........ take it from

  • Carley Fiorna, CEO of HP:  "We will go where the highly skilled people are."

Shift Manifests itself across Two Key Dimensions:

  • People and Places

How Does the New York region stack up

  • Pretty well
  • Want to give you some new information so that you can better understand your region

 

II. The Way We Work

  • People: New Work Ethic - New American Dream

What Do People Want
Peter Drucker said it best - You cannot bribe knowledge workers

  • Strong intrinsic motivations and desires

Part of a New American Dream
Balance - time, money and freedom - ability to pursue their dreams

  • Ability to make their own roles
  • Work flexibly
  • Blur the boundaries between life and work
  • Be themselves in all they do

Think about how you work versus your parents

  • How your children want to live and work

Contrast my life to my father's

Consider the following statement - from a 26 year old young woman I interviewed

  • "Me, I always felt like the weirdo.  I can only imagine the number of times it was said to me, 'Just do it that way because that's the way it's done. I always felt a sense that to be or do anything outside of the realm of 'normal' was not different but wrong.  I wish I had a dime for the number of times I was encouraged to get a job. You're seen as a weirdo if you take the risk to see and build something different. I knew I always wanted to create things for myself, but I didn't know how to do it.  Now, I finally realize it. What I want to do to build things is not weird, but actually is called entrepreneurship. I am an entrepreneur."

This has not changed

  • Info Week survey
  • Responses virtually the same
  • March 2000 at height of New Economy boom and in March 2001 height of the New Economy Bust

Top factors

  • Challenge and Responsibility (two thirds)
  • Flexibility
  • Job security and stability
  • Base pay - NOT options
  • Express themselves in their schedules and their dress

Place Matters

  • 20 percent location and commute time
  • Edge between companies and places

New way of working brings new divides

  • Not everyone participates
  • Thinking class and the servant class
  • African- Americans in particular being left behind
  • Need to harness full creativity of everyone
  • Machine shop versus the hair salon

III. THE WAY WE LIVE - PLACE

People-driven economy makes place more important

  • People use to think the new entrepreneurial economy would be "PLACELESS" as digital technology - the internet let firms and people locate wherever they pleased
  • Kevin Kelley, George Gilder and other New Economy Pundits
  • They could not be more wrong

The Talent/ Location  Nexus

  • Economic activity has always occurred near resources and raw materials
  • People/ Talent are the critical resource
  • But, people are mobile

Talent powers regional growth

  • Human capital is the main predictor of city and regional growth

What attracts People?

Thick labor markets
Place as status
Lifestyle amenities
Wide variety options for different demographics
Creativity - and creative energy
Bohemian Index
Diversity - low entry barriers to human capital
Gay Index
Multidimensional index
Quality of Place

Quality of Place: Three dimensions

  • What's there? - building stock
    – AUTHENTICITY AND REAL NEIGHBORHOODS
  • Who's there? (diversity)
  • What's going on?
    – From watching to doing (vibrant street culture, active outdoor recreation
    – Paul Allen

Place is giving rise to new divides

  • But correlation to non-white
  • New Place Wars replace class conflict
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle Beltown roving band

What Does this Mean:  Places need to do it all

  • Three T's of Economic Development
  • Technology, Talent, Tolerance
  • All work together to power economic growth
  • Each T is a necessary but insufficient condition

Top city regions do everything:

  • San Francisco, Seattle Austin etc
  • Pittsburgh Milwaukee versus Miami and New Orleans

IV. How Does the NY Region Stack up

Your region has done well - prospered in the people-driven economy

Attracted growth sectors

  • 10th on Milken "tech-pole" index

Attractive to people: talent, creative talent, young whiz kids, and immigrants

  • 9th on Talent Index

Open to diversity

  • 14th on gay index
  • 3rd on melting pot index

Incubator for creativity, and of innovation for decades

  • 2nd on the bohemian index
  • 24th on innovation index

2nd in per capita income - behind only the San Franciso Bay Area
But also generates some tensions

  • Tensions are around place
  • Running out of space
  • NYC equivalent of the garage is the factory loft - Andy Warhol's factory - Silicon Alley
  • Affordable flexible space is getting harder to find and more expensive

V. CHALLENGES AFTER THE NEW ECONOMY

How to pull assets together and bolster your people climate

  • People attraction and quality of place are biggest assets but also biggest challenges
  • Need to stay attractive and continue to reinforce and build quality of place

Wealth and value creation is packed onto Manhattan

  • How to expand the CBD
  • Both within Manhattan and across the rivers
  • How to integrate Brooklyn and also Jersey City/ Hoboken and even my home town of Newark

How to deal with rapid transitions and transformations of neighborhoods without igniting place wars

  • Openness: How to integrate tens of thousands of new immigrants and also make sure all segments of the indigenous population survive ad prosper
  • How to generate and fully harness the talent base we have
  • How to build on authenticity and not become overwhelmed by GENERICA

People Climate:

  • People climate as well as a business climate
  • Need to create a people climate for everyone

 

You have done well

  • NYC versus Silicon Valley
  • And have much to be proud of

Thank you and I look forward to discussing these issues with you.

For more information on Richard Florida's research, publications and more, visit his website at www.heinz.cmu.edu/~florida.