Thoroughly qualified student of life

For an expert perspective on what makes a city such as Perth an attractive one to young workers, Mark Pownall spoke to US regional development guru Professor Richard Florida during his recent visit to WA.

As he flipped through his charts, like a maths student from a bygone era searching through a logarithmic table, US regional development guru Professor Richard Florida gets increasingly perplexed about his new location.

At that point, his time in Perth could be counted in hours, so his impression of the place, limited by a hotel room and a brisk walk to the fringe of Kings Park at West Perth, is forming as population data for the city jumps out of him from the morass of figures.

To Professor Florida, best known as the author of The Rise of the Creative Class, the figures are various statistics from numerous cities from census information, industry data and technological output.

They provide benchmarks that allow Professor Florida – chair of Regional Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management – to compare cities, originally across the US and now globally.

And from the figures he can deduce that places that made themselves attractive to creative minds were having the most success in the global race for human talent, especially Generation X workers who are focused on lifestyle when they assess where they might put down there roots.

“Kids have friends in every city,” he said of this new world linked by the Internet.

At first glance he sees Perth as a poor cousin to Sydney and Melbourne, which both rank in his top 10 creative cities list.

The Western Australian capital ranks around 50.

“I think there are very few centres that are resource extractive that have become creative centres,” Professor Florida said.

“But you might find it in Wales.”

Further analysis of the figures, however, contrasts with that. Perth, it seems, scores highly in two out of three fields his research has concluded that a “creative” city needs to attract knowledge workers – those increasingly mobile people who use their minds to add value.

The WA capital scores well in the number of foreign-born citizens and also on his Bohemian Index, the percentage of people making a living from the arts.

On the latter score Perth ranks up there with San Francisco, one of the technological leaders in the US.

It is clear this news buoys him somewhat – after travelling halfway around the world from Pittsburgh to an isolated mining centre this is probably not what he expected.

Is he thinking he has another case study here? A place where culture, geography and people have combined to create a place that smart people will want to live.

Those who know Perth would probably be surprised by the artistic tag, but then again you can live cheaply in a city where winter doesn’t require central heating.

The foreign-born data is spot on, though locals don’t exactly consider Perth a melting pot, with much of the influx coming from Britain where the majority of the city’s citizens can ultimately trace their roots.

With an overnight stay under his belt Professor Florida still offers the opinion that he has seen more foreign faces than he’d expect in a similar-sized US city.

Never mind Perth’s failure on his third key indicator – the proportion of gay people living here is low, perhaps that has something to do with Sydney’s attraction on that count.

He starts to search for comparable cities, finding Canadian examples come most readily, such as Calgary or Winnipeg, which have economies that might match ours.

When he is offered Vancouver as a suggestion – coastal, mining focused, isolated from its national capital – Professor Florida suggests that is a great city to aim to mirror.

“Vancouver is one of the emerging creative centres in the world economy,” he said.

Perth has many of the basic advantages that Professor Florida believes attracts lifestyle-hunting creative types, which includes anyone from lawyers to software engineers.

An abundance of water and natural beauty that offer plenty of scope for outdoor activities are key factors, though Perth probably fails in one of the most important first impressions – the obvious quantity of young people actually out using the facilities.

Another big advantage Professor Florida sees is our education system, particularly at the tertiary level, where our universities are sharply focused on attracting students from overseas.

“You are in a very sweet spot because my country doesn’t want migration or foreign students,” he said.

There was a caveat on this though. Top students were attracted to top institutions and Australia, let alone Perth, had not yet developed a university that was recognised in the league of Harvard or Oxford.

Introducing Professor Florida as part of WA art and design organisation Form’s Creative Capital discussion series, Alcoa Australia managing director Wayne Osborn said youth was an important element of the corporate mix, and that it linked in more and more with creativity.

“Attracting creative people is what you have to do to give your company an edge,” Professor Osborn said.

He said Alcoa had sought input from younger employees when it was preparing to restructure its operations in WA.

“They were able to challenge many of the conventional norms,” Professor Osborn said.

“That has helped give us a plan for a change process.”

WHAT WORKS FOR A CREATIVE CITY 

• Abundance of water, natural beauty.
• Many lifestyle options.
• Lots of young people out and about.
• Street-level culture.
• Open to immigrants, diverse community.
• Top education facilities.
• Tolerant outlook.
• Technologically advanced.