Just about every old-line city wants to attract members of the Creative Class. They are the influentials in their disciplines who are in demand enough to be able to choose where they will make their homes. Among where they have happily bunked ranges from Austin, Texas to Manhattan.
One ancient city which might have an excellent shot at becoming the preferred location of the Creative Class is Jersey City, New Jersey. Its new mayor Steven Fulop has made it his "business" to create the progressive policies which align with Creative Class values. The latest is introducing a bill that mandates small businesses provide paid sick leave. And Fulop explicitly says he wants that paid leave to be available to those who must care for a sick loved one. That's about as enlightened as it gets.
Family values matter. Unfortunately, the traditionalists in the GOP played that card badly. Instead of focusing on the human bonds in the groups we designate as our families, conservatives got stuck in non-Creative Class issues. Those ranged from rigid definitions of marriage to opposition to abortion. Fulop is playing it a lot smarter. From Wall Street, he overthrew the embedded machine politics of the city. Obviously, that was just the beginning. Real estate values and the price of rentals will soar as pioneering members of the Creative Class check out the scene.
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