This appeared in Toronto Sun today...
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Jan. 14, 2004.
DAVID CRANE

As Canada looks to build its 21st century economy, it should build on its strengths.

And in the knowledge economy, those strengths should include vibrant cities, a recognition of the importance of pluralism, making Canada a country that attracts talent from around the world, a society with a deep tolerance for different ways of thinking and living, and priorities for education, research, culture and creativity.

In many respects, the importance of cities and city-regions is central to our future competitiveness in a global economy. But the focus has changed. As Martha Piper, president of the University of British Columbia, put it in a speech last fall, "in the past the challenge for cities was to attract companies which in turn would attract people. Cities are now being challenged to attract the people who in turn will attract the companies." Talented people will also create new companies.

Investment, increasingly, follows talented and creative people, a reality emphasized in the work of Richard Florida, a U.S. economist best known for his best-selling book, The Rise of the Creative Class.

In that book, Florida showed that economic success was centred on cities and city-regions that emphasized what he called the 3Ts — a large number of talented individuals, a high degree of technological innovation and tolerance of diverse lifestyles.

Now, in a fascinating article in Washington Monthly, Richard Florida argues that culture wars in the United States — in particular the divide between the Republican Right and the more liberal creative class — is creating opportunities for countries such as Canada to entice away more of the global pool of talent.

This has been reinforced by the tight security imposed by the United States since the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and the feeling on the part of more people in other countries that the United States is now much less attractive as a destination.

For Canada's part, it should reinforce its own attraction for creative people, welcoming talented immigrants, fostering pluralism, improving tolerance (same-sex marriages, decriminalization of marijuana possession), investing in education and attracting foreign students, supporting research and investing in public amenities.

Past U.S. success has been built on the country's ability to attract "the best and the brightest" from around the world, Florida says. Intel Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Google were all founded or co-founded by immigrants and nearly one-third of all businesses founded in Silicon Valley in the 1990s were started by Chinese- or Indian-born entrepreneurs.

But now "cities from Sydney to Brussels to Dublin to Vancouver are fast becoming creative-class centres to rival Boston, Seattle and Austin," he argues.

A key consideration is that "as other nations become more attractive to mobile immigrant talent, America is becoming less so." There are a number of reasons, including the U.S. economic slowdown.

But, Florida argues, "the biggest reason has to do with the changed political and policy landscape in Washington." The dominant political culture in the United States, represented by the Republican Party, is resistant to change and feels threatened by new knowledge.

Florida quotes Roger Pederson, a leading stem cell researcher, who left California in 2001 to move to the Centre for Stem Cell Biology Medicine at Britain's Cambridge University because the Bush administration put heavy restrictions on stem cell research.

Florida also quotes an e-mail from a prominent entomologist at the University of Illinois. "Over the last few years, as the conservative movement in the U.S. has become more entrenched, many people I know are looking for better lives in Canada, Europe and Australia," he wrote to Florida, adding, "it is like trying to do research and do business in the 21st century in a culture that wants to live in the 19th, empires, Bibles and all."

It is becoming more difficult to hold scientific meetings in the United States since foreign scientists can't get visas.

Immigration — attracting talent from elsewhere — is a powerful force for creativity, innovation and prosperity. "Vancouver and Toronto are set to take off: Both city-regions have a higher concentration of immigrants than New York, Miami, or Los Angeles," Florida writes, arguing that they, and other cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, offer many attractions.

"These cities are becoming the global equivalents of Boston or San Francisco, transforming themselves from small, obscure places to creative hotbeds that draw talent from all over," Florida says.

This is our future, and our policies at all levels should build the kinds of communities where talented and creative people want to live.

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Massood Joomratty, LLB(Hons), LLM

http://www.passportcanada.com" target="_blank">Your Canadian Immigration Lawyer

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+1-604-590-0607

Informative article. I first read it on a right wing run website where they ripped this article to shreds. Would not expet any different from them. They are quite anti-gay and one of the arguments was that many of the places that the study sites as progressive also had bigger gay populations....just goes to show that people can spin things any way they can to fit their agenda.

The article is surely indicative of changing trends in the world. Definitely a nice read!

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