If you’re a creative in Washington DC, then CreativesDC is just for you: “A beta community of free agents, entrepreneurs and creatives in DC, crowdsourcing places, events and scenes that inspire conversation.”

CreativesDC launched July 11, 2008 and its founding dozen members have already invited 100 of their fellow creatives (assume a 10% conversion rate) - that’s the power of community focused on a vision. By the end of July 15, the invite list will hit a thousand (again, a 10% conversion rate, resulting in a 100 new members in about a week) as local ‘gatekeepers’ organize a kickoff party on July 23. This is an example of the viral loop.

What’s the point? One longtime wistful request of the innovators in DC has been a forum to meet one another, even collaborate. What CreativesDC provides is not only an opportunity to provide that, but the means to create, as stated, the actual places (eg a design-oriented coworking site), events (eg monthly happy hours) and scenes (eg an active daytime entrepreneurial population) that represent those collaborations - via its groups. This can easily be replicated in other cities.

Is establishing a creative community like herding cats?

It's not easy, according to research findings in Richard Florida's Who's Your City?">Who's Your City?. The following excerpt from his book highlighting the findings of another colleague, Christopher Peterson Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, best explains the cloud problem of development a creative community akin to herding cats.

"Peterson's independent analysis of his strengths data and my own creativity measures found a direct relationship between character strengths - such as appreciation of beauty, creativity, curiosity, and a love of learning - and creativity index for cities. However, Peterson fond a negative relationship between creative cities and strengths that connect people to one another - such as modesty, gratitude, spirituality, teamwork, kindness, and fairness. It may very well be that creative cities have higher concentrations of people who basic personality makeup is doing their own thing. This jibes with my research team's findings which show that regional creativity and innovation are related to diversity and openness, but not to social capital of the sort Robert Putnam has written about. Putnam's most recent research has also found that diversity hinders social capital. This is all very troubling news for our sense of community and social cohesion. The very strengths that make places diverse and creative seem to damage our social capital and community commitment."

A solution. This is a very real challenge many cities have either recognized or yet to recognize, but one that CoolTown Beta Communities was designed to overcome. Read about the solution in more detail in the primer, Crowdsourcing Cool Places for Creatives, featured on the CoolTown Beta Communities home page.

Why the personality of your place matters

One of my favorite graphics in Richard Florida's new book, Who's Your City?, are the Personality Maps, based on the study, The Geography Distribution of Big Five Personality Traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness).

Two psychologists who worked on the study, Sam Gosling and Jason Rentfrow; Kevin Stolarick, responsible for much of the statistical analysis in Rich's work, collaborated with Rich through surveys and visual analysis to produce the personality maps you see here. So what personalities correlated the most with innovation, human capital, income and housing values? (which in turn are all associated with the creative class, and we know why they matter.)

Positive correlation
Openness to experience people - acceptance 'opens' the door to new ideas and diversity, and thus innovation and productivity.

Little to no correlation
Extraverted people - associated with management and sales (services).
Agreeable people - associated with manufacturing.

Negative correlation
Neurotic people - ultra-creatives tend to be emotionally stable, less volatile, more resilient.
Conscientious people - this is surprising, of course, but it's important to note that this rises to the top when associated with openness. Alone however, they tend to be rule-followers ('doing what's right' is often pre-defined) and struggle with being creative.

Graphic used with permission from the Creative Class Group, and viewable on the Who's Your City? website.

The growing economic impact of the creative class

Richard Florida's Who's Your City?, profiled in the previous entry and available starting today, focuses on why place matters dearly in attracting the creative class. However, the book provides an effective visual (above) and an entire section among four on why the creative class matters in the first place.

Notice the rise in the creative class workforce along with services, and the decline in manufacturing and agriculture, especially to overseas. However, what's especially striking is the bar graphs in the lower part of the graphic, showing that while the creative class has 31% of the workforce compared to 45.7% for services, it produces 49.8% of wages paid compared to 30.6% for services. Even more compelling is that the creative class represents 70% of all discretionary income compared to 13% for services.

The good news for the local economy is that creative class jobs are not nearly as outsourceable as services and manufacturing, and they also add to the local arts, culture and entertainment scenes much more effectively as well.

Graphic used with permission from the Creative Class Group, and viewable on the Who's Your City? website.

Richard Florida's new book, Who's Your City?

First there was the best-selling Rise of the Creative Class that introduced the creative class and the creative economy in the U.S., followed by Flight of the Creative Class which took a global perspective. On March 10, 2008, economist and author Richard Florida presents Who's Your City?, which is best explained by its tagline, How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life.

The book is organized into four parts.

Part I. Why Place Matters - explains why place is best described in terms of mega-regions, of which there are 40 in the world.

Part II. The Wealth of Places describes why the creative class is a primary reason these 40 mega-regions are the economic and cultural engines of the world.

Part III. The Geography of Happiness - looks beyond jobs and identifies the primary factors (aesthetics, openness) and personalities cities possess that are much better predictors of attracting the creative class.

Part IV. Where We Live Now - identifies the three big moves we make in our lifetime - post graduation/career development; when we have kids; and when they leave/we retire.

Finally, Rich provides a final chapter with tools to help you find your ideal city. You can start with the place finder on the Who's Your City? website, which is a fundamental complement to the book.

Highest density of creative class members

The most straightforward measure of the creative class in any city is by density; the number of creative class per square mile. You can download the
Creative Class Group's rankings with each of their creative class densities here (it only consists of four top ten lists). Below are the top three in each of the population range followed by their creative class members per square mile, with some unexpected cities outside of the usual suspects listed below.

Over one million
1. Los Angeles, CA - 281
2. New York, NY - 269
3. Washington, DC - 226
10. Hartford, CT - 119

500K-Million
1. Bridgeport, CT - 162 (picture - the upcoming Arcade, a 19th century building renovation targeting artists, design companies and restaurants. Surely we'll profile this once it opens in the summer.)
2. New Haven, CT - 92
3. Akron, OH - 89
6. El Paso, TX - 58
7 Allentown, PA - 57

At this point, it would probably benefit cities to provide the entire list since many are not exactly household names (again, see their actual creative class densities here)...

250K- 500K
1. Trenton, NJ - 358! (someone from Trenton needs to comment on this...)
2. Ann Arbor, MI - 93
3. Boulder, CO - 74
4. Flint, MI
5. Durham, NC
6. Huntsville, AL
7. Rockford, IL
8. Lancaster, PA
9. Lexington, KY
10. Reading, PA

Under 250K
1. Carson City, NV - 50
2. Santa Cruz, CA - 42
3. Elkhart, IN - 42
4. Warner Robins, GA
5. Bremerton, WA
6. Oshkosh, WI
7. Gainesville, GA
8. Muncie, IN
9. Gainesville, FL
10. Lima, OH

Would readers comment (positive or negative) on any of the cities listed above, outside of LA, NY and DC?

Who are the creatives?

Many of you in the know have heard about the Creative Class, the Cultural Creatives, and now, the Renaissance Generation. What is the difference between these groups, and if there is, how are they interrelated and what do they have to do with cool towns?

Cultural Creatives - 50 million in the U.S., aka the New Progressives, introduced by author Paul Ray in his book, The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World. These are the people who care, and specifically care about the bigger picture, from sustainability to authenticity to humanity.

Creative Class - 38 million in the U.S. representing the creative industry workforce in science, engineering, architecture, design, education, arts, music and entertainment. Based on research by Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class and Flight of the Creative Class, their presence is directly tied to economic prosperity.

Renaissance Generation (RenGen) - Take the Cultural Creatives and the Creative Class and apply them to a defined movement and time period rather than a demographic or psychographic, the result of which is literally a second renaissance. There will always be a creative class and cultural creatives, but it is only here at the beginning of the 21st Century, a time of unprecedented need and opportunity, will we have a RenGen.

The result of which will be the coolest of towns, the likes of which we've never seen before - think of the mindset and population of Silicon Valley in the urban fabric of a Venice, or of course, Florence, Italy.

Read more about creatives here.

Image source: madjid.

Make way for the second Renaissance

It is happening in our cities now, and it rivals the Renaissance of the 1300s, according to author Patricia Martin in her new book, Rengen: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer - and What It Means to Your Business.

Who are the Rengens? Patricia says it's more of a mindset than a specific demographic - "a thirty year swath of individuals who are living comtemporaneously", fueled by a large group of boomers and a very large group of 16-28 year olds.

Why is there a renaissance happening now? At the same time there's a universal sense that we're in an unprecedented decline (uncontrolled population growth, global warming), we're experience a monumental technological shift (ie the web, internet).

What is the Rengen aesthetic? A look and feel based on the natural world, with a preference for imperfection in order to have something more authentic and ecologically sound, such as the gnarly biodegradable flower pot over the perfect green plastic one, or historic buildings vs brand new steel and glass versions.

What is the Rengen spirituality? It's about 'fusion', a diverse coming together, a mashup, of differences in arts, culture, ethnicities and incomes, not segregated and divided.

The book lays out the key criteria for identifying Rengen cities:
- Density of people - the source of ideas;
- Efficient circulatory system - to allow people to connect and share ideas;
- Catalytic personalities/leaders that initiate conversation and vision;
- Ways to learn - universities, arts & culture, public library, good media outlets;
- Green cities - probably an expression of the above.

Among the author's list of Rengen cities: Chicago; Providence, RI; Philadelphia; and Seattle - the latter of which she describes as overflowing with ambition, founded by entrepreneurs, though constrained by bureaucratic government. She leaves out New York - too expensive - though by sheer density alone there are enough creatives who find a way to still live there that I believe it's still a Rengen city.

One key takeaway from the author: The average consumer wants to be marketed to as being bright and creative. Indulge them.

You can catch more of Patricia in her Smart City Radio interview.

Some people have been wondering how the creative class relates to cooltowns and to Richard Florida, who coined the term, creative class.

True story: Back in 1999 while on a business trip to Pittsburgh, one of my contacts suggested I just had to go see a Carnegie Mellon economist professor named Richard Florida because we were speaking the proverbial 'same language'. I literally dragged my business associate with me who happened to have a history of working in sports agencies, including the agency that represented Joe Namath that for better or worse catalyzed the 'athlete as superstar' phenomenon.

Well, long story short, my associate thought Richard could mainstream popularize progressive cities the way Namath did it for football - an 'economist professor as superstar' if you will. I might add, that's not a typical observance in the slightest. He told him he needed to write a mainstream popular book and promptly introduced him to his current literary agent today, Susan Schulman, A Literary Agency (highly recommended I might add). Flattered, and with no fear of the limelight whatsoever, Richard asked, "So what should I call the book?" I suggested, "The New American Dream", which was under consideration until a much better, targeted title was chosen and the resulting book was finally published over two long years later, The Rise of the Creative Class.

Today, Richard Florida, in many ways, is arguably the spokesperson for progressive, creative cities. His research team provides the economic evidence for why the creative class does indeed equate to economic prosperity. What CoolTown is and has always been about, is the implementation of the places - on the neighborhood, building or business scale - that attracts the creative class. We complement each other perfectly.

What we can help you with is in answering a vital question, "Who are the Joe Namaths in your city?" More on that tomorrow...

The kind of developer every cool city needs...

...and that's an Eve Picker. Trained as an architect/urban designer, Eve is probably Pittsburgh's most innovative, entrepreneurial real estate developer with a reputation for transforming undesirable buildings into loft-oriented residence and office works of art.

She's completed twelve developments from 2 units to 40,000 s.f. via her No Wall Productions real estate development company in Pittsburgh. Pictured is her 4920 Penn residential loft rentals, which has never had a lease vacancy since day one.

Dissatisfied with the property management of her developments once they were completed, she founded her own firm We Do Property to maintain the "high level of quality, fun, attitude and style" of her built residences and offices.

She's also one of the founders of Pop City, an alternative weekly e-magazine and news site for what's cool in Pittsburgh. The 6-8 development and 6-8 innovation news stories are often archived by neighborhood. A Pittsburgh version of the CoolTown Studios website if you will, as is Buffalo Rising is for Buffalo.

You can catch an interview with Eve on Smart City Radio. A couple of worth excerpts:

- What are the indicators that a neighborhood will attract creatives? Pop City uses TIDE indicators: Talent, innovation, diversity, environment.
- What are the key retail businesses needed to jumpstart a neglected neighborhood? Cheap good eats, sidewalk cafes, markets with fresh fruit and meat, food delivery, lifestyle/hip shops, pet day care, dry cleaners, a movie theater and car sharing.