Memphis Manifesto

Last class I think that Professor Jamerson brought up this article from Smart City (which if you aren't checking out every so often, you're missing out) 

http://www.smartcitymemphis.com/2013/01/memphis-losing-ground-in-the-race-for-talent/#comments

All of this talk of the creative class also reminds me that Richard Florida who has pioneered the study of "Creative Class" came to Memphis a few times, but most notably for a selective conference gathering people from all across the US to start a "community of ideas," if nothing else, 10 years ago called the "Memphis Manifesto." Below are the pillars/principles:
 1) Cultivate and reward creativity. Everyone is part of the value chain of creativity. Creativity can happen at anytime, anywhere, and it’s happening in your community right now. Pay attention.
2) Invest in the creative ecosystem. The creative ecosystem can include arts and culture, nightlife, the music scene, restaurants, artists and designers, innovators, entrepreneurs, affordable spaces, lively neighborhoods, spirituality, education, density, public spaces and third places.
3) Embrace diversity. It gives birth to creativity, innovation and positive economic impact. People of different backgrounds and experiences contribute a diversity of ideas, expressions, talents and perspectives that enrich communities. This is how ideas flourish and build vital communities.
4) Nurture the creatives. Support the connectors. Collaborate to compete in a new way and get everyone in the game.
5) Value risk-taking. Convert a “no” climate into a “yes” climate. Invest in opportunity making, not just problem-solving. Tap into the creative talent, technology and energy for your community. Challenge conventional wisdom.
6) Be authentic. Identify the value you add and focus on those assets where you can be unique. Dare to be different, not simply the look-alike of another community. Resist monoculture and homogeneity. Every community can be the right community.
7) Invest in and build on quality of place.While inherited features such as climate, natural resources and population are important, other critical features such as arts and culture, open and green spaces, vibrant downtowns, and centers of learning can be built and strengthened. This will make communities more competitive than ever because it will create more opportunities than ever for ideas to have an impact.
8) Remove barriers to creativity, such as
mediocrity, intolerance, disconnectedness, sprawl, poverty, bad schools, exclusivity, and social and environmental degradation.
9) Take responsibility for change in your community. Improvise. Make things happen. Development is a “do it yourself” enterprise.
10) Ensure that every person, especially children, has the right to creativity. The highest quality lifelong education is critical to developing and retaining creative individuals

When we think about the creative class and sprawl, this piece, almost encourages separation through the development of individual communities. For a small example, think of the fact that there is a craft/arts fair in every neighborhood: Germantown Craft (not really certain of its name but its in Germantown), River Arts (downtown), Cooper-Young (midtown), Pink Palace (east memphis) and there are probably even more-while these are all different and people from all over a region might go to one and not the other or all of them or none of them, they all exist and provide a different sense of creativity than the next. However, part of this difficulty is that most of these "festivals" function for those nearby and with disposable income, not everyone, and it is not working to cultivate new creativity by maintaining the same crowd they typically have. It seems we basically have white creativity down(young artists think Broad, occasionally S. Main has some diversity), but if Memphis is to thrive, we need to do what the suburbs have done: create a unifying factor. Even if in the suburbs that is just to be somewhere more safe or big yards or newer homes, it is a distinct population that takes advantage of these things and they live with each other for them. The density a city can have can encourage people to be creative, but while we lose this density to the fears of crime, further decline, unemployment, food deserts, and lack of environment, we may need to start thinking like the suburbs."The Roads Not Taken" mentions the ability of the suburb/edge city to produce individuals based on individual desire and expression which becomes a community of individuals which seems to be less and less individual, but I could definitely be wrong (107).

Anyone can be an artist, not everyone, but certainly creativity comes from anywhere. What could the unifying creative factor be, what can we learn from sprawl to encourage creativity and potentially individuals who want to be in cities?