America's "Fastest Dying Cities" - Most Are in Non-Gay Friendly States

A recent Wall Street Journal story looked at a meeting of representatives from the cities of Dayton, Cleveland, Canton and Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit and Flint, Michigan; Charleston, West Virginia, and Buffalo, New York, which focused on what those cities could do to stop or reverse their respective loses in population and the exodus of residents. Perhaps the city fathers of these cities need to read Richard Florida's book, The Rise of the Creative Class - i.e., the class of people who help generate innovation and jobs. Here's how Florida described where the creative class in migrating to in a Washington Monthly article:

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I asked the young man with the spiked hair why he was going to a smaller city in the middle of Texas, a place with a small airport and no professional sports teams, without a major symphony, ballet, opera, or art museum comparable to Pittsburgh's. The company is excellent, he told me. There are also terrific people and the work is challenging. But the clincher, he said, is that, "It's in Austin!" There are lots of young people, he went on to explain, and a tremendous amount to do: a thriving music scene, ethnic and cultural diversity, fabulous outdoor recreation, and great nightlife. Though he had several good job offers from Pittsburgh high-tech firms and knew the city well, he said he felt the city lacked the lifestyle options, cultural diversity, and tolerant attitude that would make it attractive to him. As he summed it up: "How would I fit in here?"

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What struck me is that with the exception of Buffalo, all of the cities are located in states that are not friendly to LGBT citizens - they have no employment non-discrimination protections and have restrictive adoption laws when it comes to allowing gays to adopt. While not mentioned in the WSJ article, it is note worthy that in Florida's listing of the bottom ten (10) cities for creative class residents, Norfolk, Virginia ranked second from the bottom. Indeed, but for the continued military presence in the area and defense contractor firms that congregate here, the ranking would have been even lower.

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I will concede that Texas is not a gay friendly state either, but the difference in Texas - I lived there in the early 1980's - is that Texans do seem to be more open to differing ideas, in part perhaps due to the oil industry that brings people from all over the globe to Houston and Dallas to a lesser extent. San Antonio has a huge Hispanic population and Austin has the benefit of the massive University of Texas campus. In Virginia, the only truly diverse and cities are those in Northern Virginia that are influenced by proximity to Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville which is dominated by the University of Virginia.

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I have argued before that laws driven by cultural conservatives are in the long run the death knell for vibrant and creative cities - and ultimately growing economies. The younger generation increasingly seem blind to differences in race, ethnicity, national origin and sexual orientation in judging people. This is the exact opposite of the professional Christians and "family values" organizations market to bigots and the ignorant on a daily basis. I believe that long term if cities wish to prosper, they need to encourage cultural diversity - and yes, make themselves gay friendly - so that the creative class will view them as attractive places to live. Here are a few highlights from the WSJ article:

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DAYTON, Ohio -- Here's an idea for saving Rust Belt cities: Tell bloggers and radio stations to stop calling your town a basket case. That was one suggestion from representatives of eight of the 10 cities labeled last year as America's fastest dying. They met at the Dayton Convention Center last weekend to swap ideas about how to halt the long skid that's turned cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, N.Y., into shorthand for dystopia.

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What emerged was a sense of desperation over the difficulty of rebounding from both real problems -- declining populations, dwindling tax bases -- and perceived woes. . . . "For a long time, people thought granddaddy was going to come back and make everything all right again," said Mr. Benkendorf, referring to the manufacturers that decades ago built the economies of cities like Dayton. "People have begun to realize that's not going to happen."

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Mr. Benkendorf, who directs an arts program affiliated with the University of Dayton, named the symposium, "Ten Living Cities." Dayton skeptics called it "Deathfest." One was college student Joe Sack, 22. "It's like a gambling addict [trying] to help an alcoholic," he said while at work in a coffee shop. "It's hard to see what they can learn from each other."

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If one reads the entire article, the one thing that none of the cities seem to be discussing enough is that they need to create an atmosphere attractive to the creative class, not to mention gays who are great at urban renewal - in Norfolk, the rebirth of the the now very expensive and progressive Ghent neighborhood was pioneered by gays, liberals and artistic types. Unfortunately, other areas in the Norfolk region and much of Virginia as a whole are not welcoming to those types of people. Ultimately, they will pay a price for the lack of diversity and intolerance.