An Indictment of Urban Liberalism
I know urban planning professor Richard
Florida did not intend it, but his new book represents an indictment of urban
liberalism. To Florida the motive force in urban America is “The Rise of the
Creative Class,” the title of a highly influential book he wrote in 2002. The
creative class consists of occupations in the sciences, the arts, music,
entertainment, media, management, finance, healthcare and education; in other
words the educated elite. Sitting below them is the working class who represents
blue collar workers and the service class consisting routine jobs food service,
hospitality, maintenance and retail. In other words people like Florida,
despite his humble roots, determine the destiny of a city. And to him the
defeat of Hillary Clinton and the victory of Donald Trump in last year’s
presidential election meant that the barbarians were at the gates. That may be
true but the seeds urban liberalism failures were already planted well before
the arrival of Trump. As an aside, my guess is that if Hillary won, Florida
would now be sitting in a high post at HUD.
As Florida accurately notes the influx
of the creative class into the cities of America brought with it rising real
estate prices that exacerbated pre-existing income inequality, racial
segregation and spatial segregation of the well-off from the poor. This has
been especially true in the super star cities of New York and Los Angeles and
the education/tech hubs of Boston, San Francisco and Washington D.C. In those
cities the demand-driven house price increases are exacerbated by the planning
and zoning controls put in place by the very creative class that Florida
champions. If you don’t believe me, just look at the over-the-top real estate ads that
appear regularly in The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. As a result
the creative class has been enriched and the middle class is being forced out. Thus
in urban America zoning is the engine of economic inequality.
All of this was true from the 1980s on
and most, if not all of it, were accomplished under the auspices of urban
liberal regimes. Florida’s major error is that he conflates social liberalism
with economic liberalism. While his creative class may largely support
immigration, gay rights and a high degree of tolerance for different lifestyles;
they do not necessarily believe that social liberalism requires them to make
personal sacrifices with respect to their tax burden, the schools their
children go to and the location of affordable housing in their neighborhoods.
For example the liberal voters of Los Angeles just voted to tax themselves to
provide housing for the homeless. However there are no neighborhoods
volunteering to accommodate such housing.
Now Florida to his credit understands
all of this. He offers several commendable proposals to offset the income
inequality generated by his creative class. I fully agree with him that
urban/suburban densities ought to be substantially increased, additional
density bonuses ought to be issued to allow for an affordable housing component
in major developments, property taxation should build on the ideas of Henry
George by taxing site value alone rather than land and improvements,
transportation infrastructure should be expanded to accommodate higher
densities, and low income earners need an expanded earned income tax credit.
Further he sensibly understands that rent control is not part of the solution.
Where I would disagree with him is that
he advocates a substantial increase in the minimum wage on metro-area by metro
area basis. The problem here is that substantially higher minimum wages may
worsen the problem it seeks to solve and recent research out of the University
of Washington on Seattle’s minimum wage tends to support my skepticism. We are
also in an age of artificial intelligence and that will work to obliterate
routine task jobs in food service and retail.
Where I really differ with Florida is
that he thinks that his creative class will support substantially increased
urban densities. Here I am very skeptical because it is the legally savvy
creative class who has refined protesting new developments to a high art.
Listen, I hope he is right, but I am not holding my breath. Three last points,
he leaves out a discussion on self-driving vehicles which might work to
decrease urban densities by making long distance commuting far easier. He fails
to even mention the underbelly of every major city in America, unfunded pension
liabilities largely created by that bulwark of urban liberalism, the public
employee unions. And third he is silent on the state sponsored child abuse that
takes place in all too many urban school systems. I am hopeful he will discuss
these three items in a future book.
Despite my critique, Florida’s data
driven analysis told us how we got to this place in urban America today and for
that he deserves much credit.
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