Over the last three weeks, Troy Body has published three “Cool Cities” blog posts challenging “GroupThink” concerning “The Rise of the Creative Class,” a book by Dr. Richard Florida, which is considered quasi-Biblical by those in the community development and arts fields.
Mr. Body explains Florida’s fundamental premise this way:
Move towards the light and stop spending money on foolish things like – to quote the former mayor of Winnipeg – “pipes, pavement and policies” … and start investing heavily in the arts and technology, then all will be right with the world.
Mr. Body suggests that the solution lies in people, not in government:
Cool communities are cool not because of amenities, but because the people who live in them have made them into their image – their ideal. Then the silent locutions of contentment become audible for the whole world to hear. If you go to a town – any town – where the people are amazingly in love with their space, it becomes infectious. On the flip side of that, if you go to a town where the media and residents are trashing said city, you no doubt will begin to trash it too.
If you want to make your city cool, take stock of the good things your town possesses: people product and place. then, set about an action plan with government way in the background…. The plan should be very simple: How do we hold on to what is good in our society and then expand it?
There are no committees in New Orleans seeking outsiders to come save us from ourselves. Our self-esteem is not that low…. I am not going to move to a town that is sending me this message: We are desperate…. Please come and save us.
Troy Body may be a half-bubble off plumb, but he’s one cool dude, too – and offers an effective antidote to GroupThink.
Mr. “half-bubble off plumb” responds. My point is rather simple: all of these create or visionary organizations simply link to whatever is going on in a town. Therefore, whatever is going on was happening prior to the existence of said organizations. Many of these groups are modern day garden clubs. However, garden clubs used to serve a purpose – they left a product.
A town needs grit. It needs a seedy side. It needs arts. It needs historic preservation. It needs the rich. It needs the young. It needs blue collar and everything in between. But, more importantly, it needs to live an let live. All of this group think is about “what other cities are doing.” There are people in Charleston who are dissatisfied with some life decisions they have made and are now just blaming Charleston instead of themselves. The solution, in their minds, “Charleston has to change.”
I say leave Charleston the hell alone. They need to change.
At the end of the day, its all people. Charleston, W.Va, Charleston, S.C., New Orleans, New York city, Chicago, D.C., Paris, Seoul, Los Angeles, you name it…………all of these places are just that: Places. They are nothing but a strip of land. Period. What makes the difference?: People.
Cool towns are made of cool people. If I were to ever move back to Charleston, I think I’d move to the West side of the city. Less pretense and no one walking around constantly taking their pulse and temperature and secretly asking themselves “am I alive?”
I would also like to add, happily, that Elizabeth Damewood has been brought onto the scene to help the city of Charleston out with its endeavors. Liz is smart, articulate, global and eager. She is a “go to” person and can bring gravity and realism to what otherwise would be “airy puffs of legislative cotton candy.” Liz is what Charleston needs.
There’s no question I wish Charleston was something more than it is, but I believe that individuals and groups (no matter the mission) have to first acknowledge what is available. Charleston is what it is — and I’ve come to accept that fact. And that’s okay. There’s “enough” to keep people busy. FestivAll came along at a perfect time, but that’s not what keeps people living here or what causes people to leave. The City continues to lose population and will continue to do so. I actually think the City needs to focus on preventing the loss of valuable federal dollars by quickly annexing various surrounding cities. Incorporating the unincorporated town of Cross Lanes would immediately add more than 12,000 people. And while there is absolutely nothing exciting about Cross Lanes, it solves the problem of saving federal dollars.
I think I read on someone else’s blog — and I completely agree — that part of Charleston’s problem began (in many other cities across the nation, too) when the mall was built downtown and took away the need for people to walk the streets and window shop, etc. And then along came Corridor G. We no longer value the locally owned businesses. The ones that are able to survive in downtown thrive on daytime street traffic. There is very little foot traffic at night.
I keep reading about the potential of developers renting (or leasing) apartments, condos, etc. but the prices are exorbitant. Without doubt, downtown living would help drive more commerce to the area (causing the need for a boutique grocery, perhaps) and re-creating a vibrant night-life from days of yore.
Just some rambling thoughts.
I don’t blame the malls. I don’t blame corridor G – tacky as it is. Let’s talk about the mom and pop stores in downtown Charleston. The bagle shop on Capitol street used to be open on Sundays. Prior to church or immediately afterwards, that shop was PACKED. It had a great crowd. For some reason, I don’t know why, they put a stop to it. They closed on Sunday. The mom and pop stores in downtown wouldn’t open until nine ish…and would close at five. You are closed on my way to work and closed afterwards. What am I to do but go elsewhere? As for the mall, it isn’t exactly an economic powerhouse….more government offices than stores. It is the worse mall I have ever seen anywhere.
Here in New Orleans, down the street from me (on my same street) in a beautiful historic structure, is a drycleaners. This place opens at 10am – let me repeat that, 10am (not 7am like normal drycleaners) and closes at 5pm. Am I supposed to go into work late to use this store? Should I leave work an hour early to go to the store? Or, should I ignore the hell out of it and go to the stores that meet my needs? Exactly….i.e., Towncenter and Corridor G.
Your downtown actually tickets cars on Saturdays. Little things like that send the message: Don’t come down here.
I am not in the blame Wal Mart or the malls, crowd. Mom and pops have to keep up with the times to keep downtown viable.
Le me close with this: In Louisville, there are these drycleaners (two or three of them) called NU Yale. I loved them. Small, but very clever. They gave customres a burgundy satin bag with a roll of red tape. The red tape was for you to mark any stains on your clothes (which they checked dutifully.) Then, you loaded the bag with your clothes and dropped it off in the deposit shoot at ANY time you wanted (even 4am.) The next day, they would e-mail you – itemized the items you dropped off – and offered a pick up date. The day they were ready, they e-mailed with an itemized list…and the exact cost …and said they were ready. You got your clothes and your bag back.
This is a tiny store which made a clever effort to meet the needs of its customers (that…and they don’t close till 7pm.)
[...] Antidotes to GroupThink: Creative Communities. 21 September. A salute to my good friend Troy Body, who seemed to be a little perturbed that I [...]