Economic evangelist wows business gathering

Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class spoke–is still speaking–to the Downtown Long Beach Associates annual gathering. His point: Long Beach is poised to take advantage of an economic change bigger than the switch from agriculture to industry: the rise of creative types.

We’ll deal with more in a moment, but first this: we’re sitting at Table 31–Dave Wielenga, Steve Lowery, Kristina Coffeen and I–when Florida takes the stage. I’m reading Dave Wielenga’s story on the Chamber of Commerce coup d’etat at City Hall; in short, the Chamber has bullied the city into handing out subsidies to such big-box retailers as Wal-Mart.

But like I say, Florida takes the stage as I’m reading, and he announces that (a) city officials including Mayor Bob Foster have read and understood his book and (b) great cities, cities on the rise, cities like Boston, don’t hand out subsidies to companies; Boston didn’t give Lycos a dime, he says, and yet Lycos moved from Pittsburgh to Boston. Great cities create an environment for creative people and wait for the employers to find them.

Was Florida ripping City Hall? Or is he just unfamiliar with the Chamber Coup?

Tags: big-box, Boston, chamber of commerce, creative class, Long Beach, richard florida, subsidies, tax holidays, Wal-Mart