Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Paul Jones <pjones AT metalab.unc.edu>]

Monday, July 31, 2000

DIGITAL NATION

Cool Counts in Luring Hot Techies

By Gary Chapman

Copyright 2000, The Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved

The No. 1 problem for high-tech firms these days is the shortage of
skilled workers, especially those with the talent to make an entire
company succeed. And the "talent wars" -- firms raiding one another for
top people -- are going to get even worse. What's also interesting is how
the shortage is influencing the character of communities and, in turn,
urban politics.

Richard Florida, a professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh, produced a fascinating report in January titled
"Competing in the Age of Talent: Environment, Amenities and the New
Economy" (http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~florida/talent.pdf).

Florida's yearlong study looked at how cities and regions compete for
technical talent in the new economy, and the role that environmental and
"quality-of-life" factors play in this competition.

"Knowledge workers," says the report, "essentially balance economic
opportunity and lifestyle in selecting a place to live and work.  Thus,
lifestyle factors are as important as traditional economic factors such as
jobs and career opportunity in attracting knowledge workers in
high-technology fields."

Five years ago, some pundits claimed that the flexibility of the new
economy would spell trouble for cities. George Gilder, for example,
proclaimed that the Internet would lead to the "death of the city."

What he didn't anticipate is that young people tend to like being around
other young people. The result is that hip, young technology companies
have revitalized many downtown neighborhoods, as in Manhattan's Silicon
Alley, Seattle's Pioneer Square, San Francisco's China Basin, Santa
Monica's downtown area and Austin, Texas' Congress Avenue.

Florida says that because young workers can essentially choose to work
nearly anywhere, they gravitate to places that offer a fairly distinct mix
of environmental quality, social life and "amenities,"  including youth
culture, sports, night life, music and "coolness" -- in short, an urban
identity that everyone knows exists but that is difficult to describe
completely.

"Due to the long hours, fast pace and tight deadlines associated with work
in high-technology industries, knowledge workers require amenities that
blend seamlessly with work and can be accessed on demand," Florida wrote.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson -- a young politician to watch with a
record-breaking 82% of the vote in the city's last election -- is one of
the few political leaders who seems to sense this transformation.  Watson
calls it "convergence." He means that, just as city governments are trying
to figure out how to reconcile economic growth with environmental quality
and avoid sprawl, the dynamics of the labor market in high tech are
helping point to a solution.

Young high-tech workers are not attracted to sprawling, remote and sterile
suburban developments, or even to "edge city" clusters of campus-like
high-tech companies. They want to be where the action is and,
consequently, companies want to be there too. That provides growing
support for so-called "smart growth" strategies, more dense and diverse
communities, more redevelopment of under-used real estate and more
attention to environmental quality in protected natural landscapes.

This is happening in Los Angeles too, although it is only just emerging.
Jason McCabe Calacanis, editor of Digital Coast magazine, says Los Angeles
is attracting young workers who want to put the Internet to use, the
creative people who are more interested in content than in chips.

"They don't care what browser people are using. They don't care how fast
your computer is," Calacanis said. "Everyone thought that technology would
be the driver of the new economy, but it turns out it's content, it's art.
That's why in L.A., you see energy and entrepreneurship." He says the
"epicenter of the Internet in Los Angeles" is the Coffee Bean cafe on 4th
Street in Santa Monica.

Ross C. DeVol, a senior researcher at the Milken Institute, agrees with
Calacanis. "In the recent past, we've had earthquakes, riots, fires,
recession, etc.," he says. "Sometimes Los Angeles can be its own worst
enemy. But last year, we had the first positive domestic migration to Los
Angeles in any year since 1989. That's a good sign for L.A. Young people
come here to work with cool technologies, like computer games, movies,
animation, special effects and Web design."

What this all means for political leaders eager to promote economic growth
is that they now have to pay attention to the idea of a "place," a concept
far beyond the traditional blend of tax rates, labor costs and business
infrastructure. The hot technology companies don't have time for
negotiations over tax abatements and new highways. They just want to be
where the workers are. The workers want to be where the fun is. And
political leaders now need to figure out how to get all those ingredients
to work together.

This is all good news for those few places that have the right mix of a
high-quality environment, plentiful outdoor activities, a robust urban
youth culture and what Florida calls a "thick labor market" of talented
young technical workers -- in other words, lots of them with lots of
churn, job-hopping and innovation.

Other places are unfortunately out of luck. There's a steady "brain drain"
going on across the U.S. as communities that are less than "cool" lose
their best and brightest and thus slowly sink into economic stagnation or
decline.

It's also tough if you're not a good fit with a hothouse culture of young,
type-A personalities who do everything at top intensity. The emerging
culture of the new economy is hard on older workers, workers with families
and on women and ethnic minorities who haven't absorbed the tastes and
energy levels of young, affluent techies, entrepreneurs and new-media
hipsters.

As with most other developments brought on by technology, these social
changes tied to the new economy are Janus-faced -- encouraging and
discouraging, appealing and alienating, creating new winners and new
losers all the time.

Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of
Texas at Austin. He can be reached at gary.chapman AT mail.utexas.edu.