Donald Bonk interviews Richard Florida, influential professor, writer and concrete theorist, as a part of the Pittsburgh Tomorrow podcast sequence. That is the second a part of a three-part interview. The transcript is abridged and edited for readability.
View the episode archive here. Learn Richard Florida’s Inventive Class bio here. Learn his College of Toronto bio here.
“I feel focusing actually exhausting on ensuring that Pittsburgh isn’t pulled aside—respect for distinction—might be necessary. The truth that Pittsburgh is blue and purple is necessary. However in Pittsburgh, that isn’t a pitched battle like it’s within the nation. Folks even of their similar household have a Trump supporter and a Biden supporter.” —Richard Florida
Richard Florida’s ultimate quote from Episode 11 (Half 1)
Florida: I feel Pittsburgh might be the perfect, probably the most livable, probably the most sustainable. And I’d echo probably the most racially and economically inclusive. Mayor Peduto is an previous pal of mine from my Pittsburgh days. He’s put an emphasis on inclusive innovation. I feel this concept of a shared prosperity, reminiscent of the union motion, the steelworkers, to individuals who wrestle, who actually fought pitched battles within the streets of Homestead alongside the Monongahela River. I feel Pittsburgh must be the mannequin of the perfect, probably the most equitable, probably the most inclusive, the healthiest, the most secure and most resilient small metropolis on this planet.
Richard Florida Episode 12 (Half 2)
Bonk: That’s extraordinarily useful, simply tying that previous historical past, as a result of the union motion clearly shared wealth. Shared prosperity was Pittsburgh’s story via the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Florida: Take into consideration additionally the devastating influence of the Spanish flu on Pittsburgh: The truth that individuals had been annihilated within the manufacturing unit and metal mill complexes, the truth that there wasn’t entry to well being care, and the way that stimulated a motion in Pittsburgh to offer significantly better public well being.
After which, that mixed with the nice floods and the air air pollution, with the air air pollution contributing to respiratory misery. This different motion after World Warfare II, to sort of do the Renaissance, which wasn’t a lot about altering the economic system because it was about making Pittsburgh a cleaner and safer and higher place to dwell.
If you happen to take the union motion to present working individuals a greater livelihood, and also you mix that with the environmental motion and the motion for well being, Pittsburgh has this sort of innovation in its very DNA. That’s the opposite factor I feel Pittsburgh has going for it within the wake of this COVID disaster.
My view is that the central enterprise district such as you see in Manhattan—the monetary district, the Mid-City Headquarters District—is a relic of the previous. It’s sort of the final echo of the commercial age. It’s what the manufacturing unit complexes had been to Pittsburgh and Detroit. There isn’t a motive that lots of of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of individuals have to get in vehicles and trains and busses and subways and commute a half hour, 45 minutes, an hour, 90 minutes every method to go to work.
Pittsburgh is a metropolis of neighborhoods. At its core, it’s a metropolis of neighborhoods. What urbanists are speaking about at this time is that the COVID disaster creates the power to rebalance metropolitan areas round a set of hubs and spokes. In fact, there’ll be a midtown and a monetary district. There’ll be a downtown Pittsburgh.
However you possibly can think about—there already is—out close to the schools, out in among the northern, southern and western suburbs, creating these spokes, these neighborhoods the place individuals can work, dwell and play and spend much more time with their household. Pittsburgh is completely laid out to do that as a result of it’s a metropolis like Toronto, a metropolis of neighborhoods. It isn’t only a metropolis constructed round one middle core, though it’s middle core, after all, is spectacular. It’s a metropolis constructed round quite a few spectacular neighborhoods with little facilities of their very own. In turning into this new sort of metropolis area, Pittsburgh can construct itself round its nice historical past of neighborhoods as a secure, inclusive and resilient place with round 15 and 20 minute neighborhoods unfold all throughout the area.
Bonk: You’ve listed a variety of concepts when it comes to fairness, innovation and the inexperienced motion. The writer is on this moonshot notion. If you happen to had one massive concept that Pittsburgh may take into consideration adopting, what wouldn’t it be? Do you assume there’s one singular concept amongst these concepts that will be transformative of Pittsburgh’s narrative?
Florida: Yeah, I do. Pittsburgh ought to put collectively each single philanthropic greenback it will possibly. We will go down the listing of foundations and the brand new wealth that’s been created in Pittsburgh, not simply of Pittsburghers in Pittsburgh, however individuals from Pittsburgh who made wealth exterior of Pittsburgh. Put collectively the largest pot of cash—Tepper, Cuban, Heinz, Mellon, Benedum, no matter—to draw the 100 finest and brightest celebrity geniuses on this planet, from pc science and synthetic intelligence to arts and tradition.
One of many issues the COVID disaster has achieved is make individuals really feel unmoored. For the primary time of their lives, individuals are saying, “How do I wish to dwell? I wish to spend extra time with my household. I don’t wish to return to the grind. I don’t wish to get on a aircraft. I don’t wish to go to the workplace day-after-day. I’m working from house. I’m spending time with my spouse and youngsters. Spending extra time with my pals. I’m dwelling in my neighborhood. I’m getting more healthy. I’m using my bike. I’m strolling.”
If Pittsburgh mentioned we wish to appeal to 100 MacArthur Genius Awards—which isn’t a MacArthur Genius Award that claims, “Keep the place you’re”—it will say, “Come to Pittsburgh and be a part of this cohort of 100 of those unbelievably good individuals from throughout disciplines.”
And use this to undergird Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. Carnegie Mellon is the place that’s nonetheless closest to my coronary heart. I feel, pound for pound, Carnegie Mellon College is the best college on this planet. Bar none. It will not be as massive as MIT, will not be as massive as Stanford, however pound for pound, given what it does, as a result of it doesn’t have this grandiosity. It has a humility and the individuals there are simply unimaginable.
I don’t know everyone in my division within the Rotman faculty (College of Toronto), it’s so massive. Ninety 5 thousand college students within the College of Toronto. I knew nearly each college member at Carnegie Mellon. I had a joint appointment in pc science and software program engineering as a result of I used to be working with individuals there.
Anyway, make Pittsburgh the best middle of synthetic intelligence and computer-related, software-related city know-how on this planet. So one genius award every for 100 of the perfect and brightest, however an actual concentrate on synthetic intelligence, significantly because it applies to good cities.
This space of city tech—mobility, surveillance, city automation, supply, we will go right down to listing, micro-mobility—is massive. That is the largest sector of excessive know-how since software program.
Pittsburgh is a laboratory. It has the dimensions to attempt it out. It has Carnegie Mellon. I’d say, general, concentrate on these 100 geniuses, however make an actual deep dive transfer now into making Pittsburgh the middle of synthetic intelligence, computer-related innovation in cities and good cities of city know-how. These two issues are moonshots that may repay.
I keep in mind when Astro Teller (CEO of Google X) was at Carnegie Mellon and he got here up with this firm known as Physique Media, which was one of many first to place a sensor in your arm—I’ve a match bit on my arm now. He was the primary to do this sort of factor. All of that sensor know-how in your home and within the airport, temperature checks, well being checks, we’re going to must outfit elevators and buildings in order that they’re more healthy and safer: That stuff comes out of about 4 universities on this planet, of which Carnegie Mellon is one.
In order that’s the moonshot. The Heart for City Innovation, City Tech and the 100 finest and brightest on this planet come to Pittsburgh with their analysis financed. Boy, it will be one thing that will place Pittsburgh for achievement for the subsequent hundred years.
Bonk: As you mentioned, the human scale that exists permits individuals actually to have a cup of espresso in a means, in Pittsburgh, amongst these hundred geniuses or different college members at CMU, which may not exist at a large college.
Florida: Yeah. One different factor, Donald, that we all the time talked about, Herb Simon (1978 Nobel Prize profitable economist and a Turing Award winner, pc science’s highest honor) all the time talked about and I talked to my colleagues about once I lived in Pittsburgh: My home or condominium saved getting nearer to the college such that once I left, I lived on Devonshire Highway throughout the car parking zone from the Heinz College, renting a home that the college had acquired.
Now, why is that? In New York Metropolis, Toronto, Los Angeles or Boston, there are plenty of distractions. In Pittsburgh, there are fewer. I’m not saying that’s good or dangerous, however you gravitate to the place the power is. The place’s the power in Pittsburgh? On the Carnegie Mellon campus.
I in all probability would have been dwelling in my workplace had I stayed one other 5 years. The size of town is small. Many individuals dwell shut by. Most of us come to the workplace once we lived in Pittsburgh. Nobody ever goes to their workplace in New York Metropolis as a result of it’s exhausting to get to, it’s far, and there’s plenty of distractions. However in Pittsburgh, you gravitate to your colleagues and your college students into the on-campus life.
That’s one other massive benefit to the world surrounding Carnegie Mellon and the College of Pittsburgh—it’s nearly like an prolonged campus, a collegial campus. That’s an enormous deal. Extra individuals are on the lookout for that now. Extra individuals are saying, “I don’t wish to get on a aircraft. I don’t wish to do all this different stuff. I wish to do actually fascinating work and be near my household and pals.” And I feel Pittsburgh has that to supply.
Sensible individuals have all the time cherished Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has good and progressive in its DNA. Pittsburgh has all the time revered intelligence. It’s not like a lot of the remainder of America is, so captivated by superstar tradition.
I’ll offer you a comic story. We spend the winter in Miami Seashore and, you understand, we like town and wish to assist the mayor. And also you see what’s occurring with the COVID disaster there. It finally ends up that my youngsters, despite the fact that I’m Catholic and my youngsters and my spouse are Catholic, my youngsters in Miami are in Jewish preschool. In our little Jewish preschool are DJ Khalid’s youngsters. DJ Khalid is Palestinian. It’s a really secular Jewish preschool.
Anyway, so, the mayor is attempting to get it collectively. COVID is spiking. My spouse says, “I’ll speak to Khalid and have him do a PSA (Public Service Announcement) for carrying a masks.”
The one particular person the parents in Miami would hearken to is DJ Khalid. Do you see what I’m saying? They wouldn’t know what to do with a professor like me if I mentioned, “Put on a masks.” They might say, “Who’s that man?” However in Pittsburgh, there’s a respect for intelligence. If you happen to’re at Carnegie Mellon, you might have standing locally the best way you don’t have even should you’re at MIT in Boston; you might have some. So there’s a respect for studying, for analysis, for intelligence in Pittsburgh.
In that means, it’s a magnet as a result of individuals say, “Oh, I can have help from my analysis, however individuals assume what I’m doing is definitely good. If I work at UPMC and I’m a transplant surgeon or working at tissue engineering, individuals assume I’m truly contributing to the society in a significant means.”
So I feel it’s each the truth that we’ve magnets for expertise and that there’s great respect for that expertise within the surroundings that’s very distinctive within the America of superstar tradition at this time. Tradition worships celebrities and wealthy individuals. Pittsburgh is very similar to, I hate to say, going again in time. It’s like being a part of the material of what America was and plenty of issues we misplaced. Intellectuals and researchers actually, actually like that local weather.
It’s actually fascinating that once I have a look at the USA from the vantage level of Toronto, I’d say our nationwide politics is in deep, deep hassle. We’re so darn polarized. I imply, look, Joe Biden will get elected. It might be means higher. The nation will pull collectively. He’ll truly put some Republicans in his administration. I feel this (time, now) is the low level.
However once I have a look at what’s nice about America, it’s the Pittsburghs and the Philadelphias and even Newark, my hometown and Bentonville, Arkansas, the place I’m doing work, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Omaha, Nebraska. It’s this up-from-the backside, public-private partnership anchored by universities like Carnegie Mellon, Penn, Drexel, or NYU—I might go down the listing—Rutgers, Newark and NJIT in New Jersey, which can be placing collectively these redevelopment efforts and now specializing in resiliency and inclusivity. It’s this up from the underside factor.
I feel one of many massive tendencies we’ve to vary within the wake of this COVID disaster is don’t strengthen the federal authorities. The very last thing we have to do is give our federal authorities extra energy. What we have to do is give the Pittsburghs of the world the facility they should develop.
Perhaps Pittsburgh won’t ever be the trendiest place for younger individuals. Perhaps younger individuals will all the time go to the large, massive cities, particularly of their 20s and early 30s earlier than they wish to have a household.
However then when you might have youngsters, you say, “Oh, it’s exhausting to dwell right here. The faculties aren’t superb. I’ve received to commute. I’ve received to attempt to discover a public faculty. I received to commute them a half an hour, an hour to a personal faculty. I don’t wish to put them round all elite wealthy youngsters. I’d quite have them in a superb public faculty or in a neighborhood faculty.”
Pittsburgh has an surroundings of affordability, cohesive neighborhoods and great housing inventory. There are just a few locations like that in the USA, however it’s not an infinite listing. Going again to the COVID disaster: When individuals develop into unmoored, they are saying, “I like New York. I like San Francisco. However I’ve two or three youngsters now and it’s getting much less reasonably priced. Do I actually wish to go to the suburb, or can I distant work from Pittsburgh, Nashville or Indianapolis?”
Now, it won’t be that everyone results in Pittsburgh, however everyone has a pal who mentioned that they favored Pittsburgh. Nashville had this vibe occurring 5 – 6 years in the past. Pittsburgh’s now there.
What I’d say to Pittsburgh is to be careful for the brand new city disaster. Be careful for the disaster of success. If you happen to mentioned to individuals in Austin 20 years in the past that Austin would develop into unaffordable, they might have checked out you such as you’re from the moon. If you happen to mentioned Nashville would develop into unaffordable, individuals would simply say you’re an insane particular person. However when you get this dynamic, it will get a maintain of you. Denver is within the throes of it now.
The opposite factor I’d say to Pittsburgh is to watch out, as a result of all the pieces that you simply’ve achieved proper, might develop into, paradoxically, a problem for you or part of a brand new city disaster that units up the lure of success.
Bonk: Only a sidebar right here shortly earlier than we get to the final query. I interviewed two individuals just lately. One is a Wharton grad who has a startup named Qlicket (www.qlicket.com). His identify is Vivek Kumar. He’s 35. He has his firm in Pittsburgh, however he additionally has distributed groups in New Delhi and San Francisco. What he does is arbitrage Pittsburgh. He lives in Pittsburgh, however he has a room in Silicon Valley, so he flies there, stays in his little room, after which flies again to Pittsburgh when he must. So it’s not essentially staying in a single place or the opposite, however Pittsburgh is a house base.
Florida: I feel you’re precisely proper. I feel this concept of the multi-locational family goes to develop into increasingly more. I’ve heard this lots about San Francisco, however I’ve additionally heard it more and more about New York.
San Francisco and New York are just too costly to have plenty of house. It’s actually exhausting to have the house it’s essential to have a house workplace and have youngsters. So what you do is hire or purchase a studio, which continues to be dearer than a home in Pittsburgh. Now, some individuals in San Francisco are going to the agricultural areas exterior of San Francisco. Some individuals in New York are going to the Hudson Valley, however others are saying, “The heck with that. I’d a lot choose Pittsburgh.”
My good pals on the Kaiser Household Basis in Tulsa have created this program known as Tulsa Distant, which an try and create a neighborhood of distant employees. There are individuals from New York, San Francisco, L.A., Chicago and Atlanta. I might go down the listing of those who mentioned, “I’d quite dwell in Tulsa.”
I feel I’ll all the time must be related to New York, Washington, D.C. or someplace. However you possibly can dwell in a single place and hook up with the hub facilities. And Pittsburgh is one.
Look, when individuals speak in regards to the rise of the remaining, they make a mistake once they discuss 300 locations. Once we actually drill down into the rise of the remaining, you’re speaking a couple of dozen or two dozen locations. And Pittsburgh is on that listing. There’s a very quick listing of locations that may be hub and spoke connections, and Pittsburgh is definitely one in every of them.
Bonk: So, the analogy is the hub and spoke within the Pittsburgh metro space—neighborhoods connecting to the good facilities like Oakland—is identical hub and spoke metaphor for the nation utilizing Pittsburgh.
Florida: Yeah. I forgot my one different moonshot concept. I had one other one which I received so enthusiastic about, which fits again to days in Pittsburgh speaking to people like Tim McNulty, who’s nonetheless at Carnegie Mellon, and Don Smith on the Regional Industrial Growth Company (RIDC).
We talked about how you could possibly make Pittsburgh extra of a hub. With the Biden administration more likely to come on stream and with main infrastructure spending, a part of the continued stimulus can be excessive velocity rail.
If we had been to undertake a excessive velocity rail initiative in the USA, we might join what John Gottman, the nice financial geographer who invented the concept of megalopolis known as the Chi-Pitts Mega Area—excessive velocity rail going from Pittsburgh, west to Detroit and Chicago and east to Washington, D.C. and New York, or connecting in via Washington, D.C. And perhaps sometime to Toronto; that’s extra of a pipe dream. However take into consideration an East-West Coast connection the place you’d have excessive velocity rail that would cut back the rail commute considerably.
That’s the sport changer, the best way to make Pittsburgh actually the core spoke in a multi-hub spoke system. So that will be my third moonshot: 1. A expertise genius grant to deliver them to Pittsburgh (for instance, the highest 100 in AI, Pc Software program, Robotics, City Sensible-Tech, Arts & Tradition) 2. Make Pittsburgh the AI-urban tech capital of the world. three. Join the rattling place via high-speed rail, as a result of the Biden administration goes to must do it.
Bonk: Proper, so, create the bodily equal of the digital infrastructure that we have already got in place. That’s actually great and I respect that deep thought on that stage.
Lastly, have a look at 2050, three a long time sooner or later. 1990 is as distant as 2050. If you happen to’re within the City Redevelopment Authority, the mayor’s workplace or the county government’s workplace in Pittsburgh, are there three extra Pittsburgh-centric, granular issues that you simply assume Pittsburgh might tackle as mission that will make an impactful distinction?
Florida: In 2050, I’d be 93. I don’t assume I’ll be alive. My youngsters are going to be of their mid-30s. I need them to dwell in an excellent world. That’s what I need greater than something—my two ladies to dwell in a incredible world. That’s one thing I’m nervous about.
I’d say Pittsburgh wants to actually double down on social cohesion. It’s a tough factor. It’s not like, you understand, create an incubator or develop an industrial incentive bundle. One of many issues that distinguishes Pittsburgh from the remainder of America, which I like about Toronto and why my ladies have twin citizenship, is it’s very cohesive and you’ll really feel it pulling collectively in a disaster.
We arrange our entrance porch right here. Folks stroll by and have a glass of wine and speak within the night. That’s a Pittsburgh factor. I feel focusing actually exhausting on ensuring that Pittsburgh isn’t pulled aside—respect for distinction—might be necessary. The truth that Pittsburgh is blue and purple is necessary. However in Pittsburgh, that isn’t a pitched battle like it’s within the nation. Folks even of their similar household have a Trump supporter and a Biden supporter.
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