Technology, talent and tolerance

Yesterday Isobel Hadley-Kamptz’ followed up her article from the day before with a new article about the creative class (see here).

The previous article were about companies attracting people. This article is about cities and regions attracting companies, and because the companies come to where the people are, the regions must attract people, too.

Sweden is a big country compared to the number of people living here (only 19 people per square kilometer, I think) and as people move to the cities, there’s much talk about how to prevent this trend. But the discussion is not about making the countryside more attractive to people. It seems to be taken for granted that people want to live in the country, but have to move because the jobs are in the cities.

Hadley-Kamptz writes that for a region to attract members of the creative class, just being a big city isn’t enough, but it must have a ”’cosmopolitan’ feeling. Everybody must be able to feel at home”. Again she refers to Robert Florida, whose “three key factors are technology, talent and tolerance. Politicians all over the world has realized” the importance for technology, with technology schools and research campuses, but the other two factors aren’t addressed.

As for attracting talent and fostering a tolerant climate, Hadley-Kamptz writes that “to become attractive for a certain kind of creativity, that which causes immediate economic growth, one must also nurture other kinds of creativity, that which artists, musicians and writers stand for.” And to “measure” this, “two indexes are interesting … the gay index and the artist index. They show that the places where [gay people] and artists of various kinds choose to live consequently are most economically successful.”

Reading this I first came to think of Iceland. I’ve never been there, but I think of it as a creative and tolerant country. Or is it only Reykjavik that is tolerant? Then I came to think of the Netherlands, which I also think of as an open and tolerant country. But compared to Sweden, they are more densely populated. A densely populated area is likely to be manifold and therefore more tolerant. How can you transform a region into being tolerant?