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04/20/2005: "UPDATE: The Flight of the Creative Class"

I sat outside a coffee shop on Craig Street near the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon delving further into The Flight of the Creative Class by Richard Florida. Around me were students representing most continents, and likely a decent percentage of the nations on earth. I heard more than a handful of different languages, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese and Hebrew among them.

This is Pittsburgh. The streetscape here wasn't so diverse even a decade ago. A decade prior to that and you'd have to go to New York or San Francisco to find such a fabric. The United States has long had as its advantage the ability to attract the best and brightest, or if not that then, the most motivated. As Florida's book chronicles, that is changing.

While not entirely convinced, I suspect 9-11-01 changed a lot more than the New York skyline. Not the event itself so much as the political and social reaction to it, and a president who has lead us into a retreat from social, scientific and economic progress.

Florida's book touches on all of these areas, but deals in great depth on the closing of America. We're now dealing with a "reverse brain drain." Far fewer international students are applying to study in the United States. Far fewer who do apply are being admitted. Far fewer technology workers and scientists are given visas. The United States is shutting its doors at the same time other nations, New Zealand, Australia, Canada along with other European nations and even China are opening them.

So, you might say, we should be training our own scientists anyway. You'd be right, but may have failed to consider that our engineering and scientific degree earners are leaving for other shores in increasing numbers.

You can find the facts in Florida's book. It's my fear you'll find them on the street before the bulk of us realize what has happened.

Eric Miller, on 04.20.05 @ 05:54PST

Replies: 2 Comments--Click to Add Your Comment!

on Friday, April 22nd, Brian Miller said

Good point-a very worrisome trend. I would also suggest another trend: we may fool ourselves into believing that we can "off-shore" all the messy work of manufacturing and even basic engineering while somehow retaining the glamour jobs. That seems very foolish: who will be more competitive, a company with deep ties to actual manufacturing, suppliers, etc, or a company that relies on a network of subcontractors and third party partners? Thus, a Chinese engineering student will now choose to work for a Chinese company, especially when the latter company is slaughtering the American dinosaur in the marketplace.

on Sunday, April 24th, Simon Baddeley said

Yes. I heard the way passenger lists of every overflight on US soil are now being checked. A sensible precaution except that the other day a consignment of arab horses headed for Mexico City had to fly all the way back to Amsterdam. I don't do queueing for a visa outside the US embassy in grosvenor Square let alone exposing myself to that degree of humiliation and inconvenience, so America is off limits for visiting at the moment. It's too secure. We noted white flight from "dangerous" cities in the 60s and 70s. Now we're getting withdrawal by many Americans from the rest of the world as the US turns itself into a gated community. It makes the one's who don't do burb-cowardice all the more compatible though (:)). That said I know these times will pass and Bush and his dreadful bunch will be consigned to the same chapters in the history books as the McCarthy era and other ugly chapters in the American story. I still believe Americans are their own best critics and once again i shall be moved by the resurgence of all that is truly great and lovely in America.