What Keeps Cities Vital and Relevant
About the Crow's Nest
"My grandfather Bob McCracken began writing the Crow's Nest in 1935. He was 25 years old.
"After a judge threw my grandfather in jail in 1945 for writing a Crow's Nest column criticizing the judge's conduct in a trial, my grandfather and the paper appealed all the way to the Supreme Court - and won. (Read More »)
These two important articles describe how the economies of cities around the nation are changing… and why cities that fail to pursue a vision for the future could fall behind in the 21st Century Economy. Here’s what every Austinite concerned about our economic future can learn from each article.
A break in the action
Sarah, Ford and I spent Easter weekend in San Antonio at Sarah’s parents’ home. Impressively, the Easter Bunny figured out that Ford was in San Antonio. Ford and I actually had a conversation about this concerning issue last week. Ford suggested that we send the Easter Bunny an email.
It’s different being a kid these days… and yet, my 5-year-old son still uncritically accepts the idea that a giant sentient rabbit travels around the world in a single night, delivering eggs filled with candy. In that small way, life remains thankfully constant, reassuring and hopeful.
The global economy is being reshaped. What will Austin do?
The break from the campaign actually gave me the opportunity to catch up on reading. In particular, I read two articles that describe the fundamental challenge facing Austin: the challenge of how we should respond to the global economic crisis.
These two important articles describe how the economies of cities around the nation are changing… and why cities that fail to pursue a vision for the future could fall behind in the 21st Century Economy.
The first article, “How the Crash Will Reshape America,” by economist Richard Florida (author of Rise of the Creative Class) appeared in last month’s Atlantic Monthly.
Several people have emailed me the article, and it’s been the subject of significant buzz around town for the last month.
Florida’s thesis is that the current economic crisis has catalyzed a profound change in the American economy. Some cities will emerge stronger from the current turmoil. Other cities will emerge weaker.
Here are some particularly important passages from Richard Florida’s article:
- “Our economy is in the midst of a fundamental long-term transformation—similar to that of the late 19th century, when people streamed off farms and into new and rising industrial cities. In this case, the economy is shifting away from manufacturing and toward idea-driven creative industries.”
- “What’s… certain is that the recession, particularly if it turns out to be as long and deep as many now fear, will accelerate the rise and fall of specific places within the U.S.—and reverse the fortunes of other cities and regions.”
- “As the crisis continues to spread outward from New York, through industrial centers like Detroit, and into the Sun Belt, it will undoubtedly settle much more heavily on some places than on others. Some cities and regions will eventually spring back stronger than before. Others may never come back at all. As the crisis deepens, it will permanently and profoundly alter the country’s economic landscape.”
- “Innovation, in the long run, is what keeps cities vital and relevant.”
What they’re talking about in San Antonio
In his article, Florida asks: “How might various cities and regions fare as the crash of 2008 reverberates into 2009, 2010, and beyond? Which places will be spared the worst pain, and which left permanently scarred?”
San Antonio is asking itself these questions… and it is determined to emerge as a leader in the emerging new economy.
In her column in this past Sunday’s San Antonio Express-News, Jan Jarboe Russell writes:
“At a crucial moment [in the 1920’s], San Antonio’s leaders made a fateful miscalculation. They bet our future on tourism, military bases and cheap labor instead of manufacturing and energy-related industries.
“Ninety years later, San Antonio has arrived at another crucial moment, with a chance to get ahead of history.”
Now, Jarboe writes, San Antonians are coming together “to talk about how to transform San Antonio from a poor city to a new green energy capital with a high-tech sustainable economy.”
She continues:
“The issue is how to become the first city in the U.S. to become a mayor player in what Rifkin calls the Third Industrial Revolution. The revolution — happening now — is moving from a depleted economic system powered by fossil-fuel generating plants that transmit energy from a centralized grid to a thriving economy driven by renewable sources of energy, primarily solar and wind.
“If San Antonio builds our economy around what Rifkin calls the “four pillars” — renewable energies, buildings as positive power plants, hydrogen storage, and the promotion of smart grids and plug-in vehicles — then in 2020 when the names are called of the cities that ushered in a new era of prosperity, San Antonio will be at the top of the list.”
The importance of vision and of acting now
Richard Florida writes, “At critical moments, Americans have always looked forward, not back, and surprised the world with our resilience. Can we do it again?”
Florida and Jarboe agree on the importance for cities of acting now, and they agree on which vision cities should pursue. It is a vision centered on, in Florida’s words, the economic “sectors and products that could drive U.S. growth and exports in the coming years.” The cities that emerge stronger in the transformed economy that emerges at the other end of this recession will be cities that during this recession became leaders in “medical technology,” “alternative energy,” “primarily solar and wind,” and “idea-driven creative industries.”
What neither author can answer definitively is which cities will have made the wise decisions during this recession to become leaders in these emerging sectors.
Jarboe is acutely aware of the stakes. She concludes her Sunday column with this question:
“Soon, city leaders will be faced with the kind of decision leaders faced in the 1920s. Do we stay with the status quo or do we bet on green jobs and power our future with renewables? Put another way: Sunrise or sunset in San Antonio?”
We face the same question here in Austin, whether we realize it or not. Will Austin have the vision and determination to act now… to be a leader in clean energy, biotech and the creative economy… or will our leaders be caught flat-footed?
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