The writer, Richard Florida, offers how the ongoining financial collapse will affect certain regions within the country.
His first stop is NY. He suggests the collapse of the financial sector--which once accounted for 22% of New York's jobs--might actually benefit the city, even if that percentage drops below 5%.
Why?
In this sense, the financial crisis may ultimately help New York by reenergizing its creative economy. The extraordinary income gains of investment bankers, traders, and hedge-fund managers over the past two decades skewed the city’s economy in some unhealthy ways. In 2005, I asked a top-ranking official at a major investment bank whether the city’s rising real-estate prices were affecting his company’s ability to attract global talent. He responded simply: “We are the cause, not the effect, of the real-estate bubble.” (As it turns out, he was only half right.) Stratospheric real-estate prices have made New York less diverse over time, and arguably less stimulating. When I asked Jacobs some years ago about the effects of escalating real-estate prices on creativity, she told me, “When a place gets boring, even the rich people leave.” With the hegemony of the investment bankers over, New York now stands a better chance of avoiding that sterile fate.
The quote led me to think about Newburyport. What can we do to keep it from getting boring? Some, no doubt, will say we've already passed that point.
5 comments:
Valet Parking downtown. That's what we need, otherwise this city whithers and dies.
But seriously, with the history, architecture, waterfront setting, and recreational opportunities that Newburyport affords, it will never be a dull town.
While we have a self consciousness as a full fledged City, we're really only a big town with an interesting and great history and location that benefits in being in the 'orbit' of Boston. We are in some ways a suburb of Boston overlaid on the vestigial 1970s restoration. Our demographics are suburban and our degree of boringness is determined by your own attitudes towards 'suburbs'.
I guess the major issue facing the local economy for the next year or two is the fact that not only do a vast number of local businesses depend on consumer discretionary spending, but the targeted consumer demographic aren't people who earn $12/hr but folks on the higher end of the income scale...the same folks who have been disproportionately affected by the economic downturn (if you work at Mcdonald's your job is fairly secure whereas if you work at AIG...).
It will be most interesting to see how the 'port weathers the storm. From my perspective I've already seen both fees and occupancy rates dropping at the local marinas...in my experience a good barometer of a slower summer.
The suburban moniker really has harshed my mellow. True, we're in Boston's sphere of influence, I think Newburyport offers a lot more than your average suburb. I guess Needham or Natick come to mind when I think of the quintessentially suburban.
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