This post, I have to confess is kind of a desperate act to update my blog; even though when I did this assignment for the ‘Experience, Entertainment, Arts and Economics’ course directed by the recognized professor Charlotta Mellander, I really enjoyed it and tried to give a unique and academically supported essay by the review of four Richard Florida’s work on “the Creative Class“…
During the last 5 years, I have been moving around different places, neighborhoods, countries, thus cities. Taking in consideration those changes, my intention to communicate in this paper is to analyze and match the concepts proposed in Florida, R. (2001, 2002) Florida, R. & Mellander, C. (2008, 2009) articles with the particular situation of the three following cities: (1) Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico’s currently most important city for oil extraction and oil industry, (2) Monterrey, the third largest city in Mexico and (3) Calgary, Canada’s petro-center and most economically solid city.
Right after finishing my bachelor’s studies on 2006, I moved to Ciudad del Carmen with the idea of securing a position within the Mexican oil industry and thus obtaining economic security. Even though, I knew that I will have to sacrifice proximity to cultural amenities and my demands of entertainment and arts goods, due to the industrial and small-sized characteristics of this city.
Ciudad del Carmen was during the 1970′s a small fishing village until the outburst of the oil production activities and the discovery of the Cantarell’s Oil field, one of the largest in the world. Responding to this, almost 42% of the economically active population is engaged in the service sector and 36% in agriculture-related activities (Lutz, Prieto, & Sanderson, 2000). Regardless to its small size (aprox. 160,000 inhabitants), you can find regional offices of multinational companies such as Halliburton and Schlumberger. The latter proof how high-tech companies can create human and social capital contributions, as they have shown with community engagements such as “Schlumberger Excellence in Educational Development” non-profit development program, which consists in the provision of computers and Internet access to those who can’t afford in cities such as Reynosa and Ciudad del Carmen (Jones, 2002).
But one thing is dissonant: the lack of the “creative class” and in an absurd contrast to the high wages, there’s a poor quality of life. Described sharply by Moisés Frutos, in Ciudad del Carmen –sociologically speaking- you can find two realities: a modern and wealthy middle class related to the oil industry and the remaining benefits of the fishing industry, but confronted on the other side by a huge percent of the population without a fixed occupation, with labor wages under the legal minimums (equivalent to $5 US Dollars a day) and access to detriment public services (Frutos, 2000).
In this city everything revolves around the country’s paraestatal company: PEMEX, which by law is the only one authorized to manage the oil industry (García & Rodríguez, 2008), and it’s in the coastal zone of Ciudad del Carmen where 80% of Mexico’s hydrocarbons (goods) are produced. Despite this economic wealthiness, I decided to bet for more inputs of cultural experiences and I had to abandon this city which with the potential of being similar to Houston (USA) or Stavenger (Norway) in economic activity, presents no progress in terms of cultural capital, no creativity harnessing and the only reason that attracts talented people is the economic benefits of the industry; resulting in a group of individuals who settle for just an opportunistic situation.
Before going abroad, my next stop was Monterrey. I don’t pretend to extend much on this city, but just to add that Monterrey is a fluent city with wide diversity of occupations, and as the third biggest city of Mexico, Monterrey has the peculiarity of being a link with the USA for the import and export of cultural goods due to its relative closeness. Mainly the south of Texas, or Austin as an important cultural capital.
With respect to the educational offer, Monterrey has a prominent leading profile among the whole country, with a mix of public and private supported educational institutions and to small-sized organizations that offer specialized knowledge (i.e. CEDIM, leading school on design in Mexico). However, recalling Florida’s importance of ‘tolerance’ for the agglomeration of the ‘creative class’, sadly in Monterrey, Ciudad del Carmen or even the whole country; tolerance and openness may exist in a low level if we can refer it as ‘freedom of expression’. The statistics in Mexico regarding freedom of expression are alarming. 65 journalist have been killed since 2000, to which the voices raise the question «What kind of journalism can be offered, if we are afraid to do our informative duty?» (Carmona, 2010).
Far, up northwest, in America (the continent), we find Calgary, where I lived before coming to Sweden and where I met a fascinating city in which the corporate concentration of the Canadian oil and gas industry is held. Calgary’s downtown is popularly known as the ‘petro-canadian’ skyline. In addition, this city is one of the most economically strong cities with an employment growth of 17%, against the national average of 9% (Langford, 2008). But at the same time, Calgary shows off components of what could be an attractive center for talented people or the so-called ‘creative class’, being the 4th city in Canada with more concentration of talented individuals and in the top five of more bohemian population concentrated (Gertler et al., 2002).
As a difference to Ciudad del Carmen’s example mentioned above, Calgary is potentially more adequate to harness creativity and attract key-talented drivers due to the co-existence of this industry with recreational activities, convergence of cultures and diversity, opportunities to engage in recreational activities, high-tech companies (i.e. Shaw Communications, SMART Technologies, Encana, Suncor) clustering, educational offer and the metropolitan size of the Calgary, with +1 million inhabitants.
Even though, it seems that most of the things that happen in Calgary, are dependent on the Oil & Gas industry. Langford et al. (2006) study show that ‘critical environmental factors’ this industry has a perceived negative effect on entrepreneurship, when it comes to create a new business and the general perception is that if it has not implications or relation to that industry, is better not to try. Thus, this will inhibit the generation of new ideas and the willingness to experiment rather than the established ones.
Bibliography
Carmona, E. (14 01 2010 r.). Recrudecen asesinatos de periodistas en Latinoamérica. 27 02 2010 r., Agencia Latinoamericana de Informacion (ALAI): http://alainet.org/active/35543
Florida, R. (2001) “The economic geography of talent”, Working Paper, Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Florida, R.(2002) Bohemia and economic geography. Journal of Economic Geography, 2: 55–71.
Florida, R., Mellander, C., Stolarick, K. (2008) Inside the Black Box of Regional Development. Journal of Economic Geography, 8: 615–649.
Florida, R., Mellander, C., (2009) There goes the metro: how and why bohemians, artists and gays affect regional housing values
Frutos, M. (2000) Marginación y calidad de vida en Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche (Exclusion and quality of life in Ciudad del Carmen). Congreso Marginación y Pobreza. Universidad Autónoma del Carmen.
García, A., & Rodríguez, J. (2008). Responsabilidad Social en la empresa. La región Marina Noreste de PEMEX Exploración y Producción . IX (4), 17-40.
Gertler, M., Florida, R., Gates, G., & Vinodrai, T., (2002) Competing on creativity: Placing Ontario’s cities in North American context. A report prepared for the Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation and the Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity, Canada
Jones, I. W. (2002). How do multinationals build social capital? Evidence from Mexico. University of Cambridge, ESRC Centre for Business Research. Oxford: Brasenose College.
Langford, C., Li, B., & Ryan, C., (2006). Building the pool of (creative) talent: The case of Calgary. Science, Technology and Society Program. Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary
Lutz, W., Prieto, L., & Sanderson, W. (2000). Population, Development, and Environment on the Yucatán Peninsula: From Ancient Maya to 2030. Laxenburg, Austria: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
