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Mayor sees Denver’s future in nurturing creativity

The idea Mayor John Hickenlooper hails as "the most relevant economic development plan" for Denver condemns huge corporate tax subsidies and calls building pro sports stadiums passe.

By Louis Aguilar, Denver Post Business Writer

He’s a faithful disciple of the "Creative Cities" theory, a growing public-policy movement that preaches the economic power of hipness.

The main guru of the movement is Richard Florida, author of "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life."

His theory is that bohemia must flourish for business to thrive – that the only way to attract the next business genius to your city is to build a diverse urban playground where the creative sparks fly. That means teeming cafes, an underground art scene and funky neighborhoods.

"I bought eight, maybe 10 copies of Florida’s book and handed them out to my staff," Hickenlooper said. "(Florida) really quantifies what many people intuitively believe."

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Many business leaders say Hickenlooper is preaching to the choir.

But now Hickenlooper wants to formalize the concept. It’s why he’s committed to $80,000 a year for city marketing director Angela Baier, who is charged with developing a unified brand for Denver that should help convey the cool of the Mile High City.

The race to capitalize on hipness is already running. Plenty of North American cities are already chanting a new mantra: Be creative or die.

"It used be all about offering businesses cheap land and cheap taxes," said Carol Coletta, the Memphis, Tenn.-based host of public radio’s "Smart City" program. "Now most cities are trying to carve out economic strategies based on attracting great people."

But wonks attempting to convert cool into public policy can be a dangerous thing. And even some supporters say the idea is already in danger of becoming a cookie-cutter formula.

Nevertheless, the Creative Cities movement continues to gain momentum as regions attempt to meet the lifestyle demands of an increasingly educated and highly nomadic class of workers.

They are moved by the idea that economic development is sparked not by companies, but rather by "intellectual elites," said feminist historian Marilyn Lake. Lake, a professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, has studied and written about creative-class issues.

"The creative ethos has become a definitive source of competitive advantage, making places as diverse as Austin and Boston the new centers of economic growth," Lake said in a telephone interview.

"It’s no coincidence they are also places where diversity, ideas, social tolerance, universities and high-tech industry thrive," she said.

Author Florida defines the creative class as a group of 38 million U.S. workers that includes scientists and software developers, painters and sculptors.

They change jobs at an unprecedented rate – every 3.5 years – and they tend to stay single far longer than previous generations, according to Census Bureau data. Their freewheeling attitudes have caused businesses to relax dress codes, implement flexible work schedules and even allow them to work at home if they choose.

"Most people aren’t loyal to a company, but they can be loyal to a place," Hickenlooper said.

Which is why the mayor wants to promote Denver as a city where we are in touch with our inner artist – whether it comes in the form of biotech research or Chicano street murals.

And it’s why Hickenlooper wants to encourage local businesses to spend 1 percent of their annual payroll buying the works of local artists. He wants to set up a program similar to one in Austin, Texas, that will help local musicians find corporate gigs, for example.

Similar incentives are being rolled out in places from Tampa Bay to Vancouver, British Columbia.

City governments are organizing arts summits, promoting local rock bands and hip-hop musicians, urging local chambers of commerce to woo young professionals and are investing in glitzy promotions that hail everything from art gallery crawls to historic neighborhoods.

Last spring, administrators from 47 communities gathered in Tennessee and drafted the "Memphis Manifesto" – a blueprint for raising a city’s hipness quotient.

Last month, Denise Montgomery, head of the Mayor’s Office of Art, Culture and Film, dined with author Florida at the Creative Cities conference in Toronto.

They discussed ways to encourage Denver’s cultural economy and implement the creative-class theory – by freezing taxes for art galleries, creating tax breaks for private businesses that support nonprofit cultural groups and supporting live music on street corners, for example.

Trumpeting quality of life is nothing new for cities; what’s different is the expanding definition of art and culture.

"Cities used to consider cultural life as symphonies, operas and ballet companies. All those are still important," Hickenlooper said. "But now we should embrace struggling artists, bluegrass bands, young talent of all kind."

Nurture this fun-loving environment, and the high-tech firms and other prized businesses will naturally flock to set up shop here, Hickenlooper contends.

"The days when offering a big subsidy was enough to attract a major company are over," Hickenlooper said.

Hickenlooper says he and other Denver officials learned that lesson after hearing a Boeing Co. official explain why the $57 billion aviation firm selected Chicago over Denver for a new corporate headquarters.

John Warner, a retired Boeing vice president who oversaw the process of finding a new corporate headquarters, talked to Hickenlooper and other Denver officials at a recent Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce junket to Seattle.

Illinois offered Boeing an incentive package nearly double what Colorado put on the table. But in the end, tax breaks were "not a factor in our final decision," Warner wrote in an e-mail response to a Denver Post inquiry.

What Chicago did was convince Boeing officials that its company and workers would quickly find their place in Chicago’s social and cultural fabric.

"It was all about attitude," Warner wrote. "Chicago officials put together some 50 CEOs, the heads of nonprofits and cultural institutions to address us."

By comparison, Denver trotted out Broncos quarterback John Elway, who had retired two years earlier, Warner wrote.

The message may not have been carried to Chicago, but culture already flexes major economic muscle in Denver. And that factored into Level 3 Communications’ 1998 decision to move its headquarters to Broomfield instead of Omaha.

At the time, chief executive James Crowe said the company was looking for a city that had an international airport and sufficient infrastructure. But more importantly, he said, the company was "looking for a city that would make it possible for us to attract and retain the highly specialized workforce we need."

Cultural events are a bigger draw than professional sports events in Denver, and their patrons spend plenty of money.

Cultural activities generated $1.1 billion in economic activity in metro Denver in 2001, with 9.1 million people attending cultural events, according to a biannual report by the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

That stacks up against 7.5 million people visiting Front Range ski areas and 5.3 million attending pro sports events in 2001.

The creative-class theory helps explain why Sally Goss quit a $75,000-a-year job as an mechanical engineer in Detroit to move to Denver three years ago – without a job. Goss waited tables for a while before finding a work as an engineer. She makes less money but is far happier here, she said.

"When I was reading ("The Rise of the Creative Class"), it was like putting into words why I think Denver is so great," said Goss, 31, as she stood in a crowded line at the recent 26th Starz Denver International Film Festival on the Auraria campus. More than 30,000 people attended the 11-day downtown festival.

When she left Detroit, Goss noticed city leaders were beginning to trumpet Detroit as a great urban experience. She didn’t buy it.

"The difference between buying a loft in downtown Detroit and here is that here I can walk home at night and feel reasonably safe," Goss said.

As any hipster knows, coolness is all about timing. And it’s crucial to jump on the trend early.

Some of Denver’s ambitious cultural projects are already in the middle of the pack.

The Denver Art Museum’s $90.5 million new wing, slated to open in 2006, comes at the tail end of a boom in art museum expansion, during which at least 11 major institutions created additions with innovative designs, all built in hopes of boosting tourism in the region.

Colorado’s Ocean Journey illustrates the financial risks of gambling on cultural trends. Built during the height of a national aquarium craze, Ocean Journey lasted less than five years before drowning in $62.5 million in debt.

There are other dangers, author Florida warns. A major one is creating a gap between the creative haves and have-nots.

The creative class makes up a third of most cities at best. Serving their needs requires a huge service-industry class, a demographic category severely affected by inadequate health care and a lack of affordable housing.

Florida also warns that by catering only to mobile, educated workers, the creativity that often exists in lower-income and minority neighborhoods can be snuffed out.

And since so many cities are chasing the same hipness quotient, radio host Coletta said, she’s already seeing some cities doing it wrong.

"Some cities use it to justify the next megaproject, when this is more about creating an entrepreneurial environment.

"And some cities are merely copying ideas from other cities. That’s complete nonsense. You go for distinctive," Coletta said. "You have to understand what makes Denver unique, and then celebrate and support that."

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