It is a city’s people who ultimately ruin or save themselves.

An interesting insight from The Unrise of the Creative Working Class by Richey Piiparinen. Piiparinen is criticizing the fad-de-jour which is that urban centers should renew themselves by attracting the "creative classes."

He casts the discussion in a new light. It is usually all bubbly, feel-goodish. But if you look at it from an economic or class perspective, you could just as easily see this as the self-described "creative clases" attempting to create demand for themselves. Give us free stuff (tax exemptions, better security, subsidized housing, whatnot) and we will grace your city. No nobility here, just simple self-interest at the expense of others.

If this strategy sounds like an overly simplified way to change what ails Detroit and Cleveland, it’s because it is. In fact Florida himself acknowledged this, stating in Atlantic Cities that, “On close inspection, talent clustering provides little in the way of trickle-down benefits [to the poor].” In fact, because housing costs rise, it makes the lives of lower- and middle-income people worse.

But cities keep revitalizing this way because it is a feel-good prescription that is politically palatable. Who hates art, carnivals, drinking, and eating? Displays of abundance provide the incentive to look the other way. Writes Thomas Sowell, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics”.

Where does that leave the millions operating on the wrong side of scarcity? Florida’s answer is for cities to somehow convince corporate America to pay their service workers more. While admirable, I doubt Daniel Schwartz, CEO of Burger King, is listening.

Another option would be refocusing the lens through which modern urban revitalization is viewed. The default setting is to compete for scarcity of the educated elite. Instead, we should alleviate the scarcity from the struggling. But flipping this script requires cities to give up on the idea that there is some audience that will save them. It is a city’s people who ultimately ruin or save themselves.

His comments harken to my argument that we have too long focused on poverty and not enough on productivity. Our goal should not only be about alleviating people's material wants. That is a perfectly fine tactical goal in exigent circumstances. Our real goal, our strategic goal, has to be about preparing people to create their own social capital (knowledge, skills, experience, values and behaviors), to achieve the productivity which frees them from the tyranny of the bureaucrat and allows them to be paid-up members of the community, free to make their own decisions.