Carnegie Mellon reports “Bohemia” index
From “The City Paper” online, by Bill Hobbs:
A researcher in Pittsburgh had a crazy notion that young high-tech professionals just might be drawn to the same kinds of urban communities as authors, artists, photographers, musicians, dancers, performers, designers and gay people — and the data supports it.
Here’s the twist: Nashville, the conservative buckle of the Bible Belt, scores high enough in all those categories to be rated the seventh most bohemian city in the United States, a hipness ranking that is a strong predictor of an area’s future high-tech success, according to Dr. Richard Florida, the Heinz Professor of regional economic development at Carnegie Mellon University.
Webster’s defines bohemians as “unconventional, arty.” Florida, author of the soon-to-be-published book Get Real: What’s Really New About the Economy, developed the bohemian index about a year ago. After noting that various surveys and studies designed to measure economic development success — lists like “Most Wired Cities,” and “New Economy Indexes” — quantified infrastructure and tech job growth, he wanted to measure a community’s strengths in the things that attract high-tech professionals.
It occurred to him to study the correlation between high-tech growth and a community’s attractiveness to gays and bohemians. Studying some census numbers, he found a community’s bohemian population could be quantified and is a measure of a city’s openness to diversity. He compared that data to the Milken Institute’s ranking of cities based on their regional concentration of high-technology industry and to census data measuring cities by their concentration of people with at least a bachelor’s degree.
Florida found that many of the nation’s top high-tech regions — Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin — also had large bohemian populations. A large community of artists and musicians in a city indicates a level of creativity, as well as a local culture, that attracts the young and hip. Florida also included two other measurements, the melting pot index, which is based on the percentage of a city’s population that is foreign-born, and the gay index, measuring the gay population relative to the city’s population. The latter two sets of data indicate a community’s level of openness to diversity.
The result: a ranking of the bohemian populations of the top 50 cities in the United States.
Where does Nashville rank? Nashville ranked 28th among major cities for its population of gay males — no doubt, the city ranked higher on the overall bohemian index because of its heavy concentration of musicians and creative people associated with the music industry.
New York City and Los Angeles have the largest number of bohemians, more than 100,000 apiece, followed by San Francisco with more than 40,000, and Chicago and Washington, D.C., with more than 30,000. Twelve cities have more than 10,000 bohemians. Adjusted for the size of each city’s population, Seattle, New York and Los Angeles top the list with more than nine bohemians per 1,000 residents. Six other cities have more than eight bohemians per 1,000: Portland, Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Francisco, Boston, Austin and Nashville.
Florida then compared each city’s bohemian percentage of the population to the national pattern, creating a bohemian index. The average for the top 50 cities is 1.15. A higher number indicates a higher bohemian index. L.A. and New York both rated above 1.85, while five metropolitan regions had bohemian indexes above 1.5 — Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Nashville. Austin, Portland and Minneapolis rated 1.4 or better.
Nashville is the seventh most bohemian city in the United States. (Orlando ranked 11th, Atlanta 14th, Dallas 15th, Memphis 32nd, Charlotte 42nd and Tampa 43rd.)
What does it mean for the city’s prospects in attracting high-tech economic development? A bohemian presence in an area helps establish an environment that attracts other talented or high human capital individuals, said Florida in his recent study, The Geography of Bohemia, published in January. The presence of such human capital then attracts and generates innovative, technology-based industries, he said.
“We find that the geography of bohemia is highly concentrated. We also find evidence of significant and positive relationships between the bohemian index and high human capital individuals and between the bohemian index and concentrations of high-technology industry. The relationship between the bohemian index and high-technology concentrations is particularly strong.”
On March 21, the Nashville Technology Council will hold a major conference about efforts to promote Middle Tennessee’s technology sector. The five-hour conference at the Downtown Sheraton Hotel starts at 8:15 a.m. and the panel is jammed with state and local economic development experts, high-tech business executives and business journalists. Perhaps its not too late to heed the advice of Richard Florida’s extensive research and add a few bohemians.