It’s not that often that we equate the number of bohemian artists we have in the community with our ability to attract the best and brightest job candidates. But that’s exactly what Richard Florida, the Heinz Professor of Regional Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University, recently told a gathering of Rhode Island technology professionals.
He suggested that the more open your community is to different lifestyles, the more opportunities it has for young bright graduates to be a part of the community, socially, culturally and politically as well.
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We think that Florida may have made light of some of the more traditional incentives, like salary and benefits, as important in attracting sharp talent. But his message is interesting and with a lot of merit. In particular, he is bringing together communities here that have not been closely tied before — arts and business and technology – talking with one another to see how they can collectively improve what is an already strong environment for young workers. Florida’s surveys indicate Providence is already high on the list as receptive to various lifestyles, providing an array of social activities for many different generations.
What Florida did not talk about, but what he suggests on his on Web site and elsewhere is that a community and business also need to be open and receptive to workers at various levels of the life cycle. With time, the wild and crazy 20 something graduate looking for high times and non-traditional hours becomes the 30 something with a wife or husband and kids and concerns about schools and taxes.
