{"id":782,"date":"2005-10-11T10:07:43","date_gmt":"2005-10-11T17:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/10\/flat_or_spikyit_matters_to_pla\/"},"modified":"2005-10-11T10:07:43","modified_gmt":"2005-10-11T17:07:43","slug":"flat_or_spikyit_matters_to_pla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/flat_or_spikyit_matters_to_pla.php","title":{"rendered":"Flat or spiky?…it matters to place-based culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are interesting conversations<\/a> bubbling about the contrary positions of New York Times<\/i> columnist Thomas Friedman and Rise of the Creative Class<\/i> author Richard Florida (Wired<\/i> magazine’s Chris Anderson weighs in on the debate<\/a>, as well).<\/p>\n

Friedman’s book, The World is Flat<\/a><\/i>, suggests that technology, transportation, and travel are increasingly ”flattening” the world, diminishing the need for any business or individual to be in a major metropolitan area, and changing the face of competition in the U.S. and around the world. In the October Atlantic Monthly<\/i>, Florida counters that the world isn’t flattening, but is in fact growing ever more concentrated in creative centers (which looks mighty ”spiky” when mapped on a graph). Florida’s four-page article is available for download from his Creative Class web site<\/a> (or just grab the PDF here<\/a>). Says Florida:<\/p>\n


\nBy almost any measure the international economic landscape is not at all flat. On the contrary, our world is amazingly ”spiky.” In terms of both sheer economic horsepower and cutting-edge innovation, surprisingly few regions truly matter in today\u2019s global economy. What\u2019s more, the tallest peaks—the cities and regions that drive the world economy—are growing ever higher, while the valleys mostly languish.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Hagel suggests<\/a> that both<\/i> perspectives are skewed by their static view of the world, distracting them from the intricate dynamics of what’s really going on. Certainly, population is concentrating around major hubs around the globe, but innovation and creative clusters are also sparking where they hadn’t before…not enough to show up in a spike, perhaps, but enough to make a meaningful difference.<\/p>\n

Why should the artful manager give a hoot? Both authors are exploring the shape and distribution of people and creative energy over the coming decades. That has real importance to the fortunes and vitality of place-based cultural organizations. In one view, wealth, innovation, and creative productivity spread away from major centers and scatter around the world. In the other view, these essential resources aggregate in fewer and fewer places. So, since you likely can’t move your building, do you expect your audience and assets to grow or disperse over the next decade?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are interesting conversations bubbling about the contrary positions of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Rise of the Creative Class author Richard Florida (Wired magazine’s Chris Anderson weighs in on the debate, as well). Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, suggests that technology, transportation, and travel are increasingly ”flattening” the world, diminishing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}