Richard Florida’s Hip & Gay Cities Losing Population?

In Richard Florida’s books on the “creative class” he asserts that only those cities that are “hip and gay” have much of a chance of achieving economic success. His thesis is that these highly creative people will choose to locate in larger cities that offer a more open lifestyle, shunning other towns as being “too square.” His thesis is, “Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race.”

Last month the U. S. Census Bureau released data on the growth of large cities in this country from the 2000 census thru 2004. Either Florida has it wrong or people are moving to the wrong kind of cities according to him.

San Francisco, ranked first by Florida overall by a wide margin with individual rankings of the subclasses of #5, #1, #2 and #1, had one of the worst showings in the report, losing 4.2% of its population during the last four years. Only Detroit, Cincinnati and New Orleans did worse among large cities in the USA. Such “unhip” cities as Flint, Cleveland, Pittsburg, Buffalo, etc. did better than San Francisco.

The worst city for the past year (2003 to 2004) might also be a surprise. Boston, ranked 4th by Florida, lost 1.5% of its population in that one year period and 3.4% during the last four years.

Florida’s top 10 cities were: San Francisco, Austin, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Chapel Hill, Houston, Washington, New York, Dallas and Minneapolis. Four of these cities lost population. Florida’s worst cities were: Memphis, Norfolk, Las Vegas, Buffalo, Louisville, Grand Rapids, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Greensboro and Providence. Four of these also lost population. But when you compare the overall top 10 and bottom 10, Florida’s bottom 10 cities blew his top 10 away with a 1.4% growth in population compared to only 1.0% in the top ten.

Contrast this to our research after publishing BoomtownUSA which showed that one out of every three jobs in the entire USA from 2001 to 2004 were created in the 397 agurbs® that we named. Forbes Magazine’s publisher, Rich Karlgaard said, “Hooterville is wildly cheaper than Metropolis, as a place to both do business and buy a house. The price gap continues to grow. Yet the sophistication gap between large cities and small towns is narrowing….Consider what the last 25 years have brought to small towns: cheap overnight delivery service, cable television, USA Today, national retail chains, Internet access, cell phone coverage and broadband.”

Perhaps being hip and gay isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. Perhaps quality of life and family values found in the agurbs® have more traction than Richard Florida or the national media would have you believe.