Then: Knight Creative Communities Initiative, 2008:

Technology, Tolerance, Territory, and Talent. These four T’s are the base for building a more attractive environment for economic growth, according to Dr. Richard Florida and a growing number of other internationally known researchers.

In 2007-2008, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation in connection with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation led a process to build on these assets in the Twin Ports….

Now: Alec McGillis, “The Ruse of the Creative Class,” The American Prospect 4 January 2010.

[It] is wrong, [Florida’s former manager] says, to see any conflict in Florida’s dire pronouncements on the places that bankrolled this success, because he hadn’t promised prosperity in the first place. “He wasn’t really making prescriptions,” Frantz says. “This wasn’t Jesus Christ throwing the money men out of the temple; this was an academic. He was a fucking college professor, and you’re hoping to resurrect Canton, Ohio? Yeah, good luck with that.”

We talked a little about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative project back at its inception. Florida sounds like a classic snake-oil salesman, but I note that people who participated in the project seemed to feel it was valuable in spite of his contribution/lack thereof. I’d be interested to hear what people had to say about the project–and its broader goals of community revitalization–now.

We’re (in)famous [1]:

Barry Saunders, “Junket Doesn’t Help Kids” Raleigh News & Observer, 12 November 2009.

Why is it that these indispensible conferences that state employees are always jetting to never take place in cities such as Duluth, Minn., in January or Gary, Ind., anytime?”

[1] [For definitions of “infamy” extending to well-worn stereotypes cited by minor newspapers.]

The realization that I'd stacked all the drinks next to the mini-fridge instead of in it struck me funny, somehow. Errr, never mind me.

Where else in the entire nation can you get cheaper refrigeration?
To tell you the truth I like it in Duluth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The DNT recently ran a piece relating various reader-submitted stories of April Fools’ Day pranks gone by. Now, with all due respect to those whose stories appeared, I was…  a little underwhelmed. Convincing half of scenic (and credulous) Carrboro, North Carolina (“The Paris of the Piedmont”) that a Hooters was going to take over a defunct restaurant smack in the center of town, by contrast–that was sinister brilliance (I was one of the twits who fell for it, mind you, not the architect).

Can you share any tales of memorable 1 April hijinks past without endangering your latest master plan?

Economist Edward Glaeser recently wrote in the NYT Economix blog about the declining population of the Rust Belt. I found the accompanying graphic entertaining.

A helpful primer from the DNT letters section:

With all the news about the stimulus package, one thing no one has brought up is the theory of this package. It is taken from the 1930s by an economist named Cain and was the theory used for many years until the late 1970s or early 1980s recession….