The May 16, 2010 Daily Press lead editorial bemoaned the fact that the Brookings Institute report released a week ago was less than kind to the Hampton Roads area. In fact, the report called the region "demographically challenged" both in terms of levels of education and in terms of diversity. The Daily Press editorial rightly noted some of the obvious problems cited by the Brookings Institue: lower level than average number of college graduates, lack of high paying high tech jobs, etc. Missing, however, from the analysis was one of the underlying causes for the region's relative backwardness and lack of progressive business: the religious intolerance that pervades in the area. *
The Daily Press wimps out and ignores the closed mindedness and intolerance of the still powerful Christian Right in this region which in large part fuels the "brain drain" that witnesses educated and progressive individuals leaving the region. Not surprisingly, part of this intellectual flight process includes gays leaving the region if possible - usually for Washington, D.C., New York City, Atlanta, or the West Coast. Why stay where one is treated as a second class citizen? Those who are tied here for now by their businesse- like the boyfriend and I presently - leave as soon as we retire or once elderly parents die off. Why? Because Virginia is an extremely hostile place for gays to live and prosper. Similarly, progressives who do not conform to or want their families raised surrounded by a reactionary Christianist world view likewise often find the region unattractive.
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The irony is that NONE of the local economic development departments of the cities of Hampton Roads or the state economic development offices have the balls to flat out state that religious based bigotry and intolerance is not a positive recruiting tool. Matters have only been made worse since the election of Gov. Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell and AG Ken "Kookinelli" Cucinelli to office last fall. Local politicos may feel safe kissing up to the likes of Pat Robertson, but progressives and members of the creative class flee and/or avoid the area. Richard Florida has documented the correlation between tolerance and acceptance of gays with economic prosperity. A number of media outlets have cited Florida's work. Here are highlights from a Salon article:
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And countless Republicans and conservatives have taken umbrage at the suggestion that economic vibrancy no longer resided in traditional development strategies or that the road to economic recovery did not involve reopening a steel plant but soliciting young people with tattoos and piercings. Those even further to the right blanched at Florida's notion that successful resurgence was predicated and even helped by concentrations of gay and ethnic populations. Clearly, the thought that queers and people of color were anything but talking points to scare the populace into reelection on an gay-marriage-cum-anti-immigrant platform was completely beyond the pale.
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Cities are the places that attract talent. I mean, consider that 90 percent of GDP comes out of metropolitan areas. And yet somehow some people think that we don't need cities. Not only do we have to open our borders, we have to strengthen our cities massively because they're the cornerstones of our ability to compete for talent. But for the past four years the Bush administration has done everything to prevent that, from huge decreases in infrastructure spending to drastic cuts in block grants. And now most cities aren't equipped to compete anymore. The only policy we seem to have to revive our cities is to build another stadium.
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The bigger issue is the class divide, which is destroying our country. And that divide is between people who are members of the creative class and fortunate enough to migrate from Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Buffalo or St. Louis to these great thriving creative centers like New York and Boston and Washington and San Francisco and Chicago and Los Angeles. Those people are doing just fine. But the people left behind got really pissed off and got angrier and angrier and madder and madder, and they looked at these cities filled with single people, filled with young people, filled with successful people, filled with immigrants, filled with people cohabitating, having fun, vibrant night life, filled with gay people, and they said "Enough's enough!"
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What's happening in Canada, in Australia, in Scandinavia -- I went and met with the premiers of West Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. I met with labor governors and liberal party mayors. All of them are building platforms, and the one in South Australia was remarkable -- they invest in productivity and prosperity, invest in economic opportunity, use the market and make sure they're a creative society with ecological sustainability and social inclusion.
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Gays and to a lesser extent women and to some degree immigrants, but gays most of all, become the target of all of this hatred. But it's not hatred that comes out of thin air: It's fear. It's fear that the economy is going somewhere that gives advantages to these people who live in gay neighborhoods, who live in places like Washington, D.C., who have all of these advantages -- education, skill, cosmopolitism and abilities. And if they're not gay, they surely must be French. So that becomes a scapegoat issue and a way to organize.
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The point is that if all this continues, America's economic advantage is gone. It'll become an intolerant place, the kind of place where lines are drawn in the sand, where gays don't feel comfortable, where young people don't feel comfortable, where immigrants and newcomers don't feel comfortable. The fact is that according to our rankings, the U.S. is 20th in tolerance out of 45 countries. As a country we're not ranking with the equivalent of the San Franciscos or Austins, we're ranking with the equivalent of the conservative Southern areas. And that's a huge problem.
And countless Republicans and conservatives have taken umbrage at the suggestion that economic vibrancy no longer resided in traditional development strategies or that the road to economic recovery did not involve reopening a steel plant but soliciting young people with tattoos and piercings. Those even further to the right blanched at Florida's notion that successful resurgence was predicated and even helped by concentrations of gay and ethnic populations. Clearly, the thought that queers and people of color were anything but talking points to scare the populace into reelection on an gay-marriage-cum-anti-immigrant platform was completely beyond the pale.
*
Cities are the places that attract talent. I mean, consider that 90 percent of GDP comes out of metropolitan areas. And yet somehow some people think that we don't need cities. Not only do we have to open our borders, we have to strengthen our cities massively because they're the cornerstones of our ability to compete for talent. But for the past four years the Bush administration has done everything to prevent that, from huge decreases in infrastructure spending to drastic cuts in block grants. And now most cities aren't equipped to compete anymore. The only policy we seem to have to revive our cities is to build another stadium.
*
The bigger issue is the class divide, which is destroying our country. And that divide is between people who are members of the creative class and fortunate enough to migrate from Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Buffalo or St. Louis to these great thriving creative centers like New York and Boston and Washington and San Francisco and Chicago and Los Angeles. Those people are doing just fine. But the people left behind got really pissed off and got angrier and angrier and madder and madder, and they looked at these cities filled with single people, filled with young people, filled with successful people, filled with immigrants, filled with people cohabitating, having fun, vibrant night life, filled with gay people, and they said "Enough's enough!"
*
What's happening in Canada, in Australia, in Scandinavia -- I went and met with the premiers of West Australia, South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. I met with labor governors and liberal party mayors. All of them are building platforms, and the one in South Australia was remarkable -- they invest in productivity and prosperity, invest in economic opportunity, use the market and make sure they're a creative society with ecological sustainability and social inclusion.
*
Gays and to a lesser extent women and to some degree immigrants, but gays most of all, become the target of all of this hatred. But it's not hatred that comes out of thin air: It's fear. It's fear that the economy is going somewhere that gives advantages to these people who live in gay neighborhoods, who live in places like Washington, D.C., who have all of these advantages -- education, skill, cosmopolitism and abilities. And if they're not gay, they surely must be French. So that becomes a scapegoat issue and a way to organize.
*
The point is that if all this continues, America's economic advantage is gone. It'll become an intolerant place, the kind of place where lines are drawn in the sand, where gays don't feel comfortable, where young people don't feel comfortable, where immigrants and newcomers don't feel comfortable. The fact is that according to our rankings, the U.S. is 20th in tolerance out of 45 countries. As a country we're not ranking with the equivalent of the San Franciscos or Austins, we're ranking with the equivalent of the conservative Southern areas. And that's a huge problem.
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The sad truth is that Bob McDonnell, Ken Cuccinelli and too many city council members are chasing after visions of a time that has passed on by. Instead of fostering prosperity and economic development, their policies are slowly killing the prospects fro the future if they do not open their eyes and accept the new reality. Following World War I, the UK tried to go on doing things as they had been done for decades before the war. But times had changed and so had the economic competition. Doing the same old thing and expecting different results after past failures is a sure sign of stupidity and/or insanity. The Daily Press can whine all it wants, but until something is done to address the religious intolerance and closed minded bigotry of far too many people in the Hampton Roads region, it is foolishness to expect that things will change for the better.
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