The following renderings are part of a series of professional work I will be displaying as part of my internship at Braun and Steidl Architects. The new Akron Control Center is currently under construction and should be completed by January 2014.

Cleveland was a key American industrial center built near large coal and iron ore deposits during the late 19th century. It was home to John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Company in the 1860s. Meanwhile, the steel industry was booming in Cleveland as well. Cleveland became a transportation hub, serving as the halfway point between the natural resources from the west and the mills and factories of the east. However, since the end of World War II, rust-belt industrial cities such as Detroit, Youngstown, and Cleveland have experienced notable population loss and urban shrinkage due to a decline in their economic and social bases. In the case of Cleveland, it was the loss of manufacturing jobs that caused the major economic and demographic shift. There is no clear definition of shrinking cities; there has been a range of interpretations of the phenomenon. The Shrinking Cities International Research Network, on one hand, defines a shrinking city as a densely populated urban area with a minimum population of 10,000 residents that has faced significant population loss for two years or more and is facing economic transformations with symptoms of structural crisis.

From a planning perspective, there is the dilemma that urban development is strongly interlinked with growth, leading to the perception that urban shrinkage is a threat or taboo. Trying to maintain a strategy of economic growth with the goal of regaining population growth used to be the common reaction of city planners towards urban shrinkage, oftentimes leading to success. In shrinking cities such as Cleveland, it is important to “advocate a new sensibility in planning that relies on honesty when it comes to coping with future challenges of shrinking cities”  (Pallagst). Some planners and cities have resorted to “planned shrinkage,”  in which they let hopeless neighborhoods fall to dust, and support the healthier areas that remain standing. 

Reflecting on industrial cities, Florida wrote in “The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited, “I have spent my entire life living, working, and studying in industrial cities. I adore the realness and authenticity of these great cities. Cities such as Pittsburgh have imposed bottom-up, community-based efforts for growth rather than top-down policies set by local governments. While Pittsburgh’s government and business leaders implemented big-government solutions such as stadiums and convention centers, it was the community groups and citizen-led initiatives that led to a major turn-around for the city. Community groups, local foundations, and nonprofits- not city hall or business-led economic development groups- drove its transformation. They played a key role in stabilizing and strengthening neighborhoods, investing in green technology and infrastructure, and spurring the development of the waterfront and redevelopment around the universities. Many of Pittsburgh’s best neighborhoods, such as its South Side, have avoided the “wrath of urban renewal.” Others like East Liberty have benefited from community initiatives designed to remedy the damage done by large-scale urban renewal efforts that “left vacant lots in place of functioning neighborhoods and built soulless public housing high-rise towers.” The East Liberty neighborhood is now home to several new community development projects, including a Whole Foods Market, which provides local jobs as well as serving as an anchor for the surrounding community. This kind of bottom-up process takes considerable time and perseverance. In Pittsburgh’s case, it took the better part of a generation to achieve stability and the potential for longer-term revival.

It is more rewarding to invest in local assets and businesses rather than invest in large projects such as stadiums, convention centers, and hotels. It is important to employ local people and utilize their skills, and invest in improving quality of place. “Urban revitalization based on luring so-called big game projects no longer has a place in the advanced countries. If economic developers want to do that today, they should move to China. That’s where all the big corporate projects are or are heading. Revitalizing older cities in North America and Europe increasingly depends on being able to support lots of smaller activities, groups, and projects."

Critics of Florida have reacted boldly to his "creative class" theory for economic growth. Mainly, they contend that the economics behind his theories don't work. "Although Florida's book bristles with charts and statistics showing how he constructed his various indexes and where cities rank on them, the professor, incredibly, doesn't provide any data demonstrating that his creative cities actually have vibrant economies that perform well over time."

Critics note the most fundamental measure of economics, job growth, as one way to demonstrate a flaw in his theories. Florida's creativity index lists San Francisco, Austin, Houston, and San Diego among the top ten. New Orleans, Las Vegas, Memphis, and Oklahoma City rank in the bottom ten. These cities, Florida states, are "stuck in paradigms of old economic development" and are losing their "economic dynamism" to the cities that are ranked higher. As a result of his model for economic growth, you'd expect the top cities to be big job producers, however, that is not the case. Since 1993, the cities that score the highest on Florida's analysis have not seen job growth as fast as the overall U.S. jobs economy, increasing their employment base by only slightly more than 17 percent.

Secondly, critics acknowledge the fact that Florida states that his most creative cities as centers of innovation and yet, according to one recent independent study of entrepreneurship in America, Floridaís most creative cities are ìno more likely to be powerful incubators of fast-growing businesses than those at the bottom of his ranking. This study, entitled "Mapping Americaís Entrepreneurial Landscape," ranked U.S. cities on how well they produce high-growth companies.

Unlike Florida, the commission developed a precise method of measuring high-growth centers: it calculated the percentage of companies in a local economy that grew by 15 percent a year for five consecutive years in the mid-1990s. Unlike Florida's anecdotal observations of places where he assumes that plenty of entrepreneurial activity is taking place, the commissionís numbers-oriented approach precisely charts Americaís entrepreneurial topography. Unexpectedly, the study concludes that ìmost fast-growing, entrepreneurial companies are not in high tech industries, but rather widely distributed across all industries.

The study found that high-growth companies are found in all regions of the country, in the most surprising areas. In fact, many areas in the rust belt- long viewed as an area of slow economic growth- showed a large number of high-growth companies. Cleveland ranked 22 on the study for Labor Market Areas with a population of 1-3 million, maintaining a Growth Company Index of 156. According to the study, the strongest business sectors in Cleveland are business services, distributive, extractive, local market, manufacturing, and retail.

The study also emphasizes that each of the 395 regions in the country contains some high-growth companies. While there is significant variation in the percentage of high-growth companies among Labor Market Areas, every LMA hosts growth companies that provide a base on which to build more high-growth companies. Most regions high-growth companies concentrate in certain specific industry sectors. The data highlights how future economic development strategies should be based around regional strengths. The data depicts that 89 percent of all of the LMAs in the country have comparative strengths in certain industry sectors, relative to other LMAs in their population size classes.

Some critics remark on Floridaís attempt to make something qualitative and turn it into something quantitative. My core message is that human creativity is the ultimate source of economic growth. Every single person is creative in some way. And to fully tap and harness that creativity we must be tolerant, diverse, inclusive. The idea that economic growth, a quantitative variable, coincides with creativity, a qualitative variable, emphasizes this point.

Some critics claim that Florida's creativity index and its connection to economic growth is not logical. Florida concludes that the cities that rank the highest on the creativity index rank the highest in terms of economic growth due to the abundance of creative workers, rather than individual companies, who came to live in cities they admired and then started their own firms or attracted businesses seeking educated workers. What enticed these workers, the professor concluded with very little evidence, was that the cities were tolerant, diverse and open to creativity.

Many critics of Richard Florida's Creative Class argue that his model for economic growth doesn't consequently produce the greatest amount of jobs. The study titled "Mapping Americaís Entrepreneurial Landscape" emphasizes that high-growth companies are not found solely within the "creative" sector, but are found in all areas of work. The study concludes that future economic development strategies should be based around regional strengths, whether it be creative, service or working-class related. In Richard Florida's most recent book, he has responded to many of these critics and further emphasizes his main points he made in his first book, The Rise of the Creative Class, ten years earlier. However, there are other sources that cite Florida and emphasis how his theories have generated economic growth. One of these sources, titled ìCreative Place-making, which was published in 2010, outlines several case studies that have implemented Floridaís model for economic growth and have proven to be very successful as a result. 

Reacting to the Critics

Like Florida, many people and organizations agree that creative place-making is the key to economic growth. The white paper titled "Creative Place-making" credits the creative locales which foster entrepreneurs and cultural industries that generate jobs and income, spin off new products and services, and attract and retain unrelated businesses and skilled workers. The main points that the research makes is that economic development is achieved through the 1.) Recirculation of residents' income locally at a higher rate 2.) Re-use of vacant and underutilized land, buildings, and infrastructure, 3.) Creation of jobs in construction, local businesses, and cultural activity, 4.) Expansion of the entrepreneurial ranks of artists and designers, 5.) Training of the next generation of cultural workers and 6.) Attraction of non-artist-related businesses and skills.

The research also states that economic development quickens because arts and cultural investments help the region to capture a higher share of expenditures from local income. Re-using vacant space generates local property and sales tax revenues that can be put towards streets and streetscape, lighting, sanitation, greenery, and police and fire. In addition, jobs and incomes are generated in construction, retail businesses, and arts and cultural production. New businesses in the creative industry and others are attracted to these communities. This research supports the idea that creative communities can spark economic development, and attract new businesses, artists and entrepreneurs. This research also emphasizes the importance of local, community-driven initiatives as the answer to long-term economic growth rather than governmental, policy-driven strategies.

In Florida’s new book, “The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited” Florida argues that the old methods for building creative communities simply will not work. It’s not enough to just provide good schools or a family-friendly environment, just as it’s not enough merely to have an environment that’s teeming with restaurants and bars. Florida argues that cities need to attract a people climate as much as a business climate. A people climate refers to a general strategy aimed at attracting and retaining people, especially, but not limited to, creative people. 

There is no one-size-fits-all model for a successful creative community. An effective people climate cannot have restrictions and be monolithic because the creative class group is diverse across the dimensions of age, ethnicity and race, marital status, and sexual orientation. Building a creative community is an “organic,” bottom-up process. “It’s a matter of providing the right conditions, planting the right seeds, and then letting things take their course.” 

Extensive research has been conducted trying to determine the ideal age range to target in order to build a successful community. Most community leaders will tell you that married couples in their late thirties and forties- people with middle to upper income jobs and stable family lives is who they try to attract. However, one group that has been neglected by most communities, at least until recently, is young single people. In the creative age, Florida notes, young people matter for several reasons. They are workhorses, more prone to take risks and have up-to-date skills.

But a stable people climate is not all about age. What really matters is that cities and regions have a people climate that recognizes every type of person and every type of family. Regardless of age, people enjoy stimulating, dynamic places with high levels of cultural interplay. And if they have children, that’s the kind of environment they want to see their children in. In fact, many families prefer to live in urban settings. However, the truth is that many families tend to leave the city when their kids reach school age. What’s important to remember is that families themselves are increasingly diverse and that cities must be able to attract and retain diverse people and families.

The key factor that draws people to a certain place is the place itself. Quality of Place, in comparison to Quality of Life, refers to a unique set of characteristics that define a place and make it attractive. This factor is so important, that Florida has identified Quality of Place as “Territorial Assets”; the fourth T of economic development after Technology, Talent, and Tolerance (the 3Ts of Economic Growth). 

There are three key dimensions to Quality of Place (Florida, “What Draws Creative People?”):
What’s there: the combination of the built environment and the natural environment; a stimulating, appealing setting for the pursuit of creative lives.
Who’s there: diverse people of all ethnicities, nationalities, religions, and sexual orientations, interacting and providing clear cues that this is a community where anyone can fit in and make a life. 
What’s going on: the vibrancy of the street life, café culture, arts, and music; the visible presence of people engaging in outdoor activities—altogether a lot of active, exciting, creative goings-ons.

In summary, Quality of Place is about an interrelated set of experiences. Many of these experiences occur at the street level and are dynamic and participatory. Everyone is a part of the picture of the place; whether it’s being a part of the street-buzz or retreating to your home or the park. 

Quality of Place does not occur automatically. It is an ongoing, dynamic process that involves the engagement of a number of disparate aspects of a community. However, the process is not always a good thing; what appears to be neighborhood revitalization from one perspective is gentrification from another. (Florida, “What Draws Creative People?)

Another element of Quality of Place is thick labor markets. Creative people are attracted to places that offer several jobs in their field rather than just one. They want confidence in knowing that there are several opportunities for them and they don’t have to feel trapped working the same job for the rest of their life. To be attractive, a place needs to offer a job market that is conducive to a horizontal career path (Florida, Revisited 287).

Thick labor markets allow for place to solve a basic puzzle of our economic order: it facilitates the matching of creative people to economic opportunities, providing a labor pool for companies that need people and a thick labor market for people who need jobs. In this way, place replaces the large corporation. It becomes the central organizing unit of our economy and society. “The gathering of people, companies, and resources into particular places with particular specialties and capabilities generates both the efficiencies and the innovations that power economic growth” (Florida, Revisited 288).

Introduction: The Rise of the Creative Class

The emergence of a new social class, the creative class, is based fundamentally on the value of human intelligence, knowledge, and creativity. Richard Florida, who wrote “The Rise of the Creative Class,” in 2000, takes on this term “creative” in a multitude of ways socially, culturally, and economically. 

Human creativity, Florida determines, is the ultimate economic resource. The ability to develop new ideas and better ways of doing things is ultimately what raises productivity and thus living standards. One of the greatest transitions in America was the shift from an agricultural-based economy to the industrial age. This transition was based on natural resources and physical labor power. The transition we are undergoing now, Florida notes, is a shift from an industrial economy to a creative economy based on human intelligence, knowledge, and creativity (Florida).

The people that make up the creative class are the ones who are paid principally to do creative work as a living. They engage in complex problem solving that involves a great deal of independent judgment and requires high levels of education or human capital. The core of the creative class include scientists, engineers, artists, musicians, designers, and knowledge-based professionals. It also includes an even broader range of creative people in business, law, finance, and health-care. In fact, the creative class is composed of approximately 30% of all Americans and accounts for nearly half of all wage and salary income in the United States, about $1.7 trillion (2000). The other social classes include the service class, which is made up of the cashiers, salespeople, police officers, food preparers, medical assistants, and administrative assistants and the working class, which includes the miners, welders, carpenters, truck drivers, production workers, and construction workers. The service economy is the support infrastructure of the creative age. The diagram below shows the allocation of people in each social class in the Cleveland area (Florida).

The three T’s for economic growth, Florida states, provides a model in which creative-seeking communities should base their investments and energy in. The first T, Technology, is measured by innovation and high-tech industry concentration. Talent, the second T, is measured not by human capital but by creative capital, which is talent measured functionally, by the numbers of people actually in creative occupations. Tolerance, the third T, is about places that are open and accepting and therefore have an edge in attracting different kinds of people and new ideas. The Tolerance Index is based on four measures, including the Gay Index, the Bohemian Index, the Melting Pot Index (the concentration of foreign-born people), and racial integration, which is used to capture how integrated rather than separated a community is throughout its internal geography (Florida).

Florida ranks a region’s creativity based on a model known as a creativity index, which establishes a rating system for a region’s ability to harness creative energy for long-run economic growth based on the 3 T’s of economic growth (Florida).

The Transformation of Everyday Life

American society is undergoing a transformation of everyday life that has changed from one that was typically based around manufacturing, service, and working sectors to one that is based on creativity. Creativity, in comparison to the other sectors, thrives in a different work environment. Florida compares the blue-collar and white-collar working sectors to the creative sector, which is no-collar. It is considered no-collar because the creative class includes a vast amount of individuals and professionals who demand the ability to learn and grow, shape the content of their work, control their own schedules and express their identities through work (Florida).

o The Experiential Lifestyle
 We demand a lifestyle built around creative experiences. We are impatient with the strict separations that previously demarcated work, home and leisure. This is why live work communities are a good idea.

o The Time Warp
 A whole new social construction of time is emerging. The old boundaries that told us when we should do something have faded into oblivion. Creative work requires long hours of intense concentration, punctuated by the need to relax, incubate ideas and recharge.

o The Creative Community
 “Creative people have always gravitated to certain communities (…) that provide the stimulation, diversity and a richness of experiences that are the wellsprings of creativity” (Florida).
 “In place of the tightly knit urban neighborhoods of the past or alienated and generic suburbs, we prefer communities that have a distinct character” (Florida).

This past semester I began my thesis writing on the Creative Class and Rustbelt Cities. The Following is the abstract from my paper:

Richard Florida’s “The Rise of the Creative Class” recognizes the emergence of a new social class, the creative class, as the people who are paid principally to do creative work as a living. He goes so far as to state that human creativity is the ultimate economic resource and that all communities and community leaders should invest in creative resources and creative people. The Three T’s for Economic Growth, Florida states, recognizes technology, talent, and tolerance as the major factors for the development of economic growth. More recently, he has recognizes a fourth T for economic growth, Territorial Assets, as the key factor that draws people to a certain place. Also known as “Quality of Place,” Territorial Assets include the assets that make a certain place attractive for creative people. Thick labor markets, lifestyle, social interaction, diversity, and identity are some of these assets. When building a creative community, it is important to develop a strong people climate rather than simply a business climate.

The loss of manufacturing jobs caused Cleveland’s economy to struggle and the population to shrink substantially. The phenomenon of shrinking cities has caused planners and developers to think differently about planning in a way that is more honest and realistic for Rustbelt cities such as Cleveland that are struggling to regain population growth. Like Florida mentions, bottom-up community development strategies are important, but it isn’t the only strategy that planners and designers must consider. What is important is to establish a unique kind of creative class, which I title “The Rustbelt Creative Class.” 

Even though Cleveland has experienced urban shrinkage and decline in the past several decades, there is a downtown revival emerging that due in part to the innovators, entrepreneurs, thinkers and doers in places such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Youngstown. The Rustbelt revival is not experiencing new growth only because there is an abundance of cheap space. It’s about the authenticity of the post-industrial environment, particularly the prevalence of conflict. 

Conflict, which is often associated with anger, tension and avoidance, should be seen as the driving force for community growth. The irony of conflict is that it “stirs us into observation and memory” and allows our minds to think creatively. The ability to create has long been tied to ones surroundings. In the case of Rustbelt Cities, these surroundings are characterized by the vacant and underutilized buildings and structures, the post-industrial parks and factory buildings, foreclosed homes and boarded-up storefronts, and patchwork of random buildings and land. This “patchwork” of contrast is the characteristic of a chaotic landscape: one that lacks an identity and is the outcome of urban decay, shrinkage, demolition and abandonment.

Cleveland’s growing arts community has embraced the conflicted environment and approached it in an artist way; recognizing  and reusing once underutilized and vacant spaces and buildings, creating something out of nothing. The process of reusing vacant buildings does not have to be belabored, but can be done in phases and can be as simple as selecting one building for rehabilitation, as a model, then building up the number for rehabilitation.  The redevelopment of vacant lots and structures has the potential to create more jobs, more recreational spaces, cultural opportunities and more vibrancy to an area that formerly was a dilapidated area. 

This is the approach that planners and community leaders need to take: being able to embrace authenticity, enacting a strategy that accepts conflict in the environment.  The traditional model for economic growth, one that is based on the idea of newness and maximum population growth, simply does not work for Rustbelt cities like Cleveland. The site selected will recognize these guidelines and serve as a model for creative communities in Rustbelt cities.

Keywords: Creative Class, Richard Florida, Conflict, Rustbelt, Cleveland, Artist District

I am excited to announce that our competition entry was awarded an honorable mention at the 2012 Cleveland Design Competition Awards Exhibition and Reception. 

Our concept for the Detroit-Superior Bridge was all about "Putting Cleveland in Focus:"

The city of Cleveland has recently experienced a promising amount of redevelopment within a close proximity to downtown which has spurred numerous nodes of vibrant pedestrian activity. The investments in East 4th Street & other similar areas have attracted a young market group to move into downtown apartments which is supporting a growing nightlife around Public Square and similar circumstances are improving Ohio City as well. One can also see a re-emergence of The Flats in the redevelopment of the East Bank. Although historic locations such as Terminal Tower and the West Side Market have proven their ability to sustain activity through certain hours of the day, this second layer of activity is beginning to fill in the gaps. This renewal is a refreshing indication of positive change in the life of the urban fabric.

Although these enhancements are proving their ability to succeed and making strong efforts to connect to and improve the existing fabric around them, they are still fragmented by underdeveloped areas, undulating topography, the Cuyahoga River and a sheer lack of walkable connections. At an urban scale, this phenomenon translates as the individual pixels of a broader image.  Without enough supporting pixels, the image of the city becomes less defined, hence the notation of ‘A Pixelated City.’   Our vision is to utilize the prime location of the lower level of the Detroit-Superior Bridge and adjacent public sites to create numerous essential connections that cater to the bicycling and pedestrian communities so that Cleveland may once again be seen in focus. By unifying the isolated pixels in the area, the bridge and connecting elements will become a fertile network upon which future development will thrive.

While bridging a gap, few instances allow the opportunity to actually consider ‘the gap.’  In this proposal, this previously isolated area (neglected by the Shoreway and Red Line Bridges) acts as a catalyst for development by establishing a rich ecosystem, public access, and economic development.  These connections are established directly, through a vertical core and recreational rockwall; visually, through pixel viewing platforms; and physically, with bike and pedestrian friendly paths.

Surrounding investments, such as East 4th Street and Ohio City have attracted a young professional market to live downtown, which is supporting a new type of economy. One can also see a re-emergence of the once-booming Flats in the redevelopment of the East Bank. Although historic locations such as Terminal Tower and the West Side Market have proven their ability to sustain activity over the years, this second layer of activity is beginning to fill in the gaps and re-establish the sense of pride and identity that the city of Cleveland has to offer. 

The proposal allows the Emirates New Zealand design and assembly team to manufacture and assembly the equipment required to compete in the Americas Cup event all under one roof. The manufacturing of the hull, mask, and rigging and assembly will all occur in assembly-line formation. The proposal attempts to establish a new paradigm of world-class yacht design; one that questions the traditional appeal of manufacuring facilities. The architecture and engineering is a reflection of the high-end, modern, and high-cost lifestyle of the yacht racing culture. The facility is a reflection of this need for a comprehensive built environment that satisifies the needs of both the private and public sectors. By combining the two sectors, the architecture is used to embrace the culture and public realm into the sport of yacht racing and inform the public. It also accomodates the public by accomodating event space, retail space, restaurants, and a yacht club. The new facility revolutionizes the idea of a manufacturing facility by promoting the sport itself through the architecture as an object of motion, world-class design, and technology.