Charleston’s (WV) ‘Creativity’ Gets High Marks – Saginaw, Brockton, Salem, OR and Madison also in top five

The number of people in Charleston paid to "create" ideas, content or technology grew more than three times the national average at 6.7 percent between 1999 and 2002, one of the reasons the area was listed as an up-and-coming city in Money magazine.

By:
Paul Wilson
Charleston Gazette

http://www.nasvf.org/web/allpress.nsf/pages/9036

In its June issue, the magazine cites work by Carnegie Mellon University researchers who believe a "creative class" of individuals makes up 30 percent of the U.S. work force. These individuals are "young, educated workers" employed in fields ranging from computer science to law, according to the article.

Charleston is primed to draw those individuals in the next 10 years, according to the researchers. The area was tied for fourth with Madison, Wis., among the 79 metropolitan statistical areas with 250,000 to 499,999 residents. Saginaw, Mich., was first, ahead of Brockton, Mass., and Salem, Ore., who tied for second. Atlantic City, N.J., earned an honorable mention.

"What we really looked at is places to watch in the future," said Kevin Stolarick, a Carnegie Mellon lecturer who compiled the data for Money’s article. "This counts areas … that are doing well but perhaps not excelling as much as other areas. The whole idea is places to watch."

The work is based on Richard Florida’s theories, published in his 2002 book, "The Rise of the Creative Class." Charleston’s and other cities’ rankings were based on recent high-wage creative class growth, wage inequality, wage inequality growth, population density and per capita income growth.

Charleston scored best in creative-class growth, but 1.5 percent high-wage creative class growth here was only slightly better than the national average.

Sixty percent per-capita income growth was also significantly higher than the national average, according to the research.

Overall wage inequality and average wage inequality growth were slightly below the average for comparable cities.

Charleston didn’t score as well in population density. The area has more sprawl than average, but isn’t as bad as other similarly sized cities.

"It wasn’t so bad that it made it a negative," Stolarick said.

Florida’s theories have critics, according to Money’s story. "[T]here’s been the debate over what makes a city "creative" in the first place. Is it culture or a pleasant environment? Does an uptick in jobs mean a city is hot, or does it depend on what kinds of jobs are being created? And what about the cost of real estate?"

Cities with more than 1 million people rated as up and coming include Oakland, Calif.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Baltimore; Indianapolis; and San Antonio.

Hot cities with between 500,000 and 1 million residents include Napa, Calif.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Harrisburg, Pa.

Hot cities with fewer than 250,000 residents were Bremerton, Wash.; Hagerstown, Md.; Monroe, La.; Muncie, Ind.; and Clarksville, Tenn.

Internationally, Sydney, Australia; Malmo, Sweden; Calgary, Canada; Oulu, Finland; and Toronto were up and coming.