Re: Re: The Building Boom Is Over!

And some gay guys are as creative as a lumberjack (if you get my meaning) – all these stereotypes are pish anyway. I must read Mr Rose’s little essay, but if planners start getting philosophical, reach for your revolver.

Places with a high concentration of gay people tend to have higher rates of innovation and economic growth. Florida is not arguing that gay people cause cities to be successful, but that our presence in large numbers is “an indicator of an underlying culture that’s openminded and diverse”, and thus conducive to creativity and attractive to creative workers. A place that welcomes gay people welcomes all kinds of people.

Having given Mr Rose’s piece a thorough skim (which is what it’s worth), it simply equates with the modern planner’s desire to be ‘business-friendly’ (creativity = economic success, and similar truisms). It’s a fallacy to think that ‘tolerance’ (how deep?) of one group equates with a wider range of tolerance of other groups or that necessarily ‘openness’ will lead to economic success. it’s the old debate about structure and agency and that’s too big for this post.