As New Orleans reinvents itself after Hurricane Katrina, political and civic leaders plan to cultivate tourism and “culture-based” industry. The big new idea, writes urbanologist Joel Kotkin, is a publicly subsidized, $1 billion Riverfront development catering to the “creative class.” While the city morphs into a “mildly raucous, hipper Disney World,” the long-term migration of the once-vibrant energy sector to Houston continues unabated. The new New Orleans may be a great place for saxaphone players to make a living, but it won’t offer much for traditional blue-collar and white-collar workers.
The whole “creative class” thing has gotten out of control, Kotkin argues in an op-ed piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. American’s state and local governments are over-investing in glitzy arts and entertainment complexes, sports stadiums, luxury hotels, convention centers and light-rail lines, and under-investing in the maintenance of its mundane roads, bridges, water-sewer facilities and electric power lines.
“Public capital spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually,” Kotkin writes. “Nationwide, 44 new or expanded centers are in planning or under construction.” By contrast, he adds, “The American Society of Civil Engineers says that $1.6 trillion must be spent over the next five years to prevent further deterioration. Only $900 billion is now earmarked.”
Starving critical infrastructure in order to fund money-losing boondoggles like sports stadiums and convention centers is not a long-term path to prosperity, Kotkin contends. Until politicians adopt a coherent, back-to-basics strategy that funds real needs instead of pork-barrel projects, “we can look forward to more natural disasters, bridge collapses, subway malfunctions and power shortages.”
What Kotkin doesn’t say, but I would add, is this: Many politicians have hijacked the rhetoric of Richard Florida’s “creative class” theory to justify their spending on the glitzy, “urban renewal” projects that Kotkin criticizes. The irony is that sports stadiums, convention centers and performing arts complexes are not what the creative class is looking for. Florida, the creatuve-class guru, regards them as largely a waste of money. He contends that the culturally, entrepreneurially and scientifically creative elements of society are lured to cities characterized by openness and tolerance. They also seek “authenticity” and street-level culture. None of those are attributes that are attainable through Business As Usual, pork barrel politics.
Bottom line, we’re getting the worst of both worlds: We’re not funding our infrastructure needs, and we’re not even creating the kinds of communities that the creative class wants to live in. We’re just keeping the politicians in power.
