Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Wow! Austin... San Francisco... Santa Fe... and Greenville... drawing creatives by the thousands

Many people work very hard over a very long period of time... cultivating... and nurturing... and coaxing. We know we have a great thing going. But it seems no one else does. Then bam.
Consider those living and working in Austin (Dell Computers, South by Southwest festivals) and the San Francisco Bay Area (Google, Cisco, Pixar). Or Santa Fe (highest number of art studios per total population) and Greenville, South Carolina (Peace Center in the Performing Arts, BMW). These cities are drawing creatives by the thousands.
Why Conservatives Must Win the 'Creative Class'
This is better than being highly ranked in some poll, because this just seeped into the conversation as a matter of fact... as if everyone already knew it. This author writes an article, and Greenville is top-of-mind as a creative place along with Austin and San Francisco and Santa Fe. Wow! This is powerful.

I immediately emailed the author and asked how Greenville hit his radar screen. Turns out that he lived in Greenville for a couple of years and so had experienced the city's creative energy first hand. That's even better.

3 comments:

Susanna said...

Oddly enough, my first thought upon reading the headline in the SF newsletter that Greenville was "drawing creatives by the thousands" was that if this is true, it could potentially affect upstate politics by making the Greenville area less radically conservative. Then, it turns out that this is a quote from an article titled "Why Conservatives Must Win the 'Creative Class'."

I guess I'm not the only one who realizes the overall bent of this group, though as a member of the "creative class" I would call its political leanings more libertarian than liberal.

Anonymous said...

yes susanna,

both the articles' title and it's content are disappointing to say the least, and, disturbing at worst.

While conservatives and 'elitist wanna-bes' are adamantly expressing why they and their biased group(s) should drive the laws, policies & global initiatives of our nation-state, our country is being neutured, neutralized and bankrupted through arrogant, narrow-minded, self-defeating and 'so called' Conservative policies.

For supporting examples of such dynamics, one needn't look very far or long. Note in today's headlines the damage to our nation's reputation and sustainablity while after graciolusly delivering tents and rice to starving earthquake victims in Pakistan with one hand, we unilaterlally dropped bombs on innocent civilians while they slept with another hand. Of course we didn't 'intend' to kill innocent people, but they are dead none-the-less; and our nation's reputation is once again tarnished, as is it's sustainability.

So I beg those, "conservative" or otherwise, that are pleading for the power and respect to be in charge of 'Creating' a better future for our nation & the world, that they open their minds and a dialogue with all the good citizens of this world. This is critical because it is only through sincere dialogue and mutual respect that we will continue to progress as a nation. That is to say, that we will become better world class citizens, and not simply a rulers over some 'Class' or the other.

Continued hubris & ignorance will destroy our nation.

RileyWarner said...

Both of you missed the point, which isn't to debate the politics of the author. The point was that when he listed creative places, Greenville was top-of-mind for him. That's a fantastic sign of our progress, regardless of the observer’s political leanings.

I had dinner last night with a researcher that is a world leader in his field that Clemson is trying to recruit. We ate at The Lemongrass, a wonderful Thai restaurant downtown. It was a beautiful evening, and lights on Main Street were sparklingly through the trees as they do in the evening. He has four daughters who love the arts, so we talked about the art scene in Greenville from the Governor's School for the Arts to Artisphere to the Peace Center. He was delighted and impressed.

That's what the author is talking about. He had lived in Greenville and experienced the city firsthand, which as I said made his comments even better.