Over in the comments of Richard Florida’s blog, George asks an interesting question in response to my summary of Richard’s argument in The Atlantic.
Own or Rent?
George writes:
How do you place the idea of “more fluid in living” along side the theory that buying a permanent place (a house) leads to building a stronger community because the people are more invested in that more permanent location, thus improving schools, small business, etc.?
This is an interesting question… here is my response (with a few edits):
The general argument behind Richard’s original piece is that diversity in a city facilitates diverse social interaction, and consequently results in more creative output by individuals in that community/ city. In addition, there will be greater diversity with less homeownership, as renting allows people to more fluidly move between locations, city to city, as needed. A city where people do not move may be a cause of further decreased diversity over time as people become more similar to those they interact with, or so goes the argument of those in social networks and induced homophily literature- (Centola Axelrod, etc.) Imagine a city where 0% of people move. We would expect these people to converge in preferences, tastes, careers, etc. over time, thus leaving the city more homogenous as a whole.
And yet, for certain types of entrepreneurship, such as community development initiatives, the motivation comes from commitment to a place. Take St. Louis as an example– some of the more interesting development projects of late have come from people who are ‘committed’ to the city as life long residents. This seems to be the underlying tension as local entrepreneurship often flows both out of good ideas from diverse interaction (allowing people to build across diverse perspectives) and a commitment to the value of a pursuit in that specific place. Thus, entrepreneurship comes both out having a good idea, and a motivation from seeing it as having value (either financially or personally). Does being a renter make one less likely to see local investment/ community development projects as good ideas, or valuable use of one’s time? Does it make them more likely to leave a town of less ‘value’… perhaps the cities most in need of the ‘creative class’ pursuits? Will increased ‘flow’ of human capital only serve to make the good towns better and the bad cities worse in a survival of the fittest sort of dynamic? It seems in the example of Detroit that this would be the case, as homeownership has been one major thing that has prevented a more fluid population drain from the city. Hence Dr. Florida’s example of Detroit still being one of the largest cities in the U.S. despite a long period of economic decline. If there was less homeownership in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, would Detroit be at a better place– more vibrant, more capable or more renewed– or would it just be more barren, under-populated and economically under developed? Is this even the appropriate level of analysis? Moving from ‘a city’ as an entity, what about those people who could have left had they been renters… would they be at a better place, more prone to creative pursuits?
These are some honest questions for which I do not have much in the way of an answer. What do you think?
