In an article titled “Housing the creative class is a problem in New Orleans”, the author Teresa Wiltz discusses the issues that have arisen in New Orleans as a result of their increasingly popular music scene. The creative class is having difficulty finding housing, and Wiltz mentions that if musicians and cultural artists are not able to find affordable housing, it will have a negative impact on the overall cultural economy. She states that an artistic community can have many benefits on a city, including gaining a competitive edge, spurring economic development, and creating jobs. Therefore cities are faced with an issue of preserving their unique creative culture while the artists are unable to live there.
In Jamie Peck’s article “Creative Liberties”, he outlines Robert Florida’s idea of the creative class by explaining that it is beneficial for cities to cater to the needs of the creative class, as they are the primary drivers of economic development. While this may be true for a number of reasons, catering to the needs of the creative class and structuring cities to revolve around their needs can be problematic when there are serious housing issues, as Wiltz discussed.
How can the problem of affordable housing be resolved in cities attempting to preserve their artistic culture? Waterloo is a city with many factors that might make it attractive to a creative class. Can you see the issues discussed by Wiltz becoming a problem in the Waterloo region?
Article: http://www.pressherald.com/2017/02/12/commentary-housing-the-creative-class/
To be honest I can. The more people move into Waterloo, the more expensive real estate becomes. But the great thing about the Waterloo region, is that there are numerous means to cut costs of housing; either by sharing an apartment with a friend or living in a house with 5 others. What I feel can be done by companies is to subsidize housing costs for their workers, specifically around their place of work. Making it more convenient and money friendly for them.
ReplyDeleteA lot of companies may not be willing to do this, seeing most of these big firms do not care about their workers, but those that can, should
I spent a week in New Orleans last year for a social innovation conference hosted by Ashoka. During the conference, I got to attend a business pitch competition where I heard from a budding entrepreneur who is dealing with homelessness by utilizing the city's creative class.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned, New Orlean's music culture is unparalleled. On all the main streets, especially at night, you can hear jazz music playing inside bars and live outside on the streets. And this particular entrepreneur was pitching her idea for a nonprofit that provided instruments to homeless folks and used community volunteers to teach them them how to play music. In doing so, providing the homeless individual with an income (tips) and boosting the music culture in the City, and in turn, possible increasing tourism long-term (simple explanation but you get the point).
This socially innovative idea is an example of how the city can utilize its outstanding creative class to address some of its social issues. Perhaps additional revenues collected by the government from increased tourism could be committed to building more affordable housing, which is an issue addressed in this article.