Creative class, it’s called.
People who add life to any city or region.
They are residents involved in technology, entertainment, journalism, finance, certain types of manufacturing and the arts.
Urban planner David Rusk, writing in 2002, called for York County to create a community that would attract, grow and retain such a creative class, who would contribute alongside workers in industry, agriculture and services.
He put forth this example about York:
“Think of York County’s economy as if it were an athlete — a middleweight weightlifting champion, bulked up from hoisting all those York barbells at a gym just down the road from the National Weightlifting Hall of Fame. York’s been successful for years at what it does well — pumping iron. But it’s losing a little muscle tone. And it sees the big money going not to weightlifters but to sprinters and milers — that is, creative class economies.”
And he posed this question in his deep dive into York County, Rusk Report 2.0: “Can York develop the legs for the long run? Can it not abandon weightlifting to become not only a runner but a champion decathlete?”
I was thinking about Rusk’s call for creatives when looking at the long list of artists and art exhibits that were part of the recent York Arts Week. The unveiling of colorful murals in the Royal Square neighborhood — Murals Park — highlighted the August week.
The Royal Square neighborhood is exactly the type of project that Rusk was pointing to. It’s an Industrial Revolution-era residential and commercial district bounded by the streets named after royals: King, Queen, Princess and Duke.
When Rusk was writing, it was a district without promise, headlined by an old janitorial products supplier doing business in a place originally built for — and abandoned by — a car dealership. Today, it’s The Bond, an event venue that is a key part of a growing arts district.
The Rusk Reports
Rusk did three in-depth socioeconomic analyses of the York County between 1996 and 2019. Future Gov. Tom Wolf was among the community leaders to initially bring him here, and the York Daily Record published all three reports.
The reports sparked community conversation, essentially calling for county, regional or state solutions to aid a deteriorating city at the county’s center. If the city could not be shored up, Rusk argued, the deterioration would spread to the suburbs and beyond.
Rusk drew opposition, in part, because he called for the expenditure of funds to address spreading blight, including a 1-mill county tax increase for revenue sharing with older communities, countywide affordable housing and to mitigate sprawling development.
Today, some in the community will say not much came from Rusk’s recommendations.
Certainly, more could have been done — and still can be done.
I talked with one community leader about five years ago about the prospect of joining with the York Daily Record to bring Rusk back for Report 3.0. That leader said Rusk’s thinking was dated and people no longer listened to him.
So the YDR teamed with another organization, the York County History Center, to engage Rusk to produce the last in-depth public report undertaken in the York County community, a report that tracked the community’s progress — or regress — on key indicators from 1970 to the late 2010s.
And by the way, Rusk’s ideas directly or indirectly led to the multi-school-district operated York Academy Regional Charter School, a two-way George Street and a 1/10-mill tax levied on the county for land preservation.
As it turns out, his ideas for a creative class across York County are evident today.
The work and life of the creatives can be seen around the city and county. You can look through old store fronts and see young professionals writing digital code. You can see the creatives participating in evenings of storytelling, often about life in York County. You can find creatives at work in downtown Hanover, where at least two art galleries operate. And in Ruins Park in Glen Rock, you’ll find an increasingly popular site that combines art with an outdoors event venue.
And you’ll see creatives all over Facebook and Instagram sharing their stories and creative work.
More:See fifteen new murals in York’s Mural Park this weekend during unveiling event
They talk via social media
It’s possible to tap into the ideas about community among creatives by friending them on Facebook and Instagram and talking with them on social media, private messenger on Facebook and text messages.
Indeed, I believe community leaders who eschew listening in on community discourse on social media are missing valuable information that would help them do their jobs better.
Check out this sampling of ideas from recent Facebook discourse, all three, I believe, coming from creatives:
Someone noted the endurance of York Twinning and its valuable starting in the Cold War in partnering with Arles, France and Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany.
The suggestion came in a private social media message that York Twinning should expand its partnerships by sending teams to Bamberg, South Carolina, ancestral home of many Black families in York County, and hosting teams from Bamberg here in York. That would be a way a respected organization could refresh itself. That points to the value held by many creatives about diversity in relationships.
Further, someone on Facebook offered a suggestion, perhaps tongue in cheek, about how to mitigate the appetite shown by massive solar farms for green space in York County. Mount them, instead, atop the second-largest consumer of green space: our massive warehouses. (I might add that we could do the same atop rental storage units and dollar stores, two other major consumers of green space).
And another Facebook poster, no fan of chain businesses, complimented the employees at a coffee shop with a national brand for their energy and spirit.
The poster said the workers were singing along with the music, holding doors for customers and complimenting them on their outfits.
Creatives populate coffee shops, particularly locally owned shops, as places to gather and experience community. And creatives do their jobs in a world increasingly open to working remotely.
Indeed, two new local coffee shops just opened in the town of Red Lion, known for its years of manufacturing and railroading.
And if you have a question about the work ethics of creatives, just go to The Prince Street Café some Sunday afternoon and evening and look around as they tap away on their laptops.
Coffee shops and brewpubs have replaced the private clubs, often exclusive, where people of another generation gathered.
Attracting creative people
This growth of the creative class might have occurred if Rusk never stepped foot in York County. York Mayor John Brenner and his administration fostered the creative scene in the 2000s.
And art and York County go back a way with a legacy of pioneering artists starting in the 1800s with Lewis Miller, William Wagner, photographer Glenalvin Goodridge and others.
But I believe that Rusk helped lay a foundation in the decade’s first century for street art to begin cropping up in York and murals and other art appearing beside the rail trail and galleries with artist quarters above becoming available.
It’s remarkable how the creative climate in York County today resembles Carnegie Mellon’s Richard Florida’s scenario, as quoted by Rusk in 2002.
“While it is important to have a solid business climate,” Florida counsels, “having an effective people climate is even more essential. By this I mean a general strategy aimed at attracting and retaining people — especially, but not limited to, creative people. This entails remaining open to diversity and actively working to cultivate it, and investing in the lifestyle amenities that people really want and use often [urban parks, bike lanes, performance venues], as opposed to using financial incentives to attract companies, build professional sports stadiums, or develop retail complexes.”
In the 2000s, York and York County did build a needed sports stadium. And it retained Harley-Davidson and Johnson Controls. But the ongoing, important work in creating an environment for creatives was — and is — on the mark.
‘So I’m drawing all of it’
Blake Gifford, who grew up in Houston, is an example of a creative resident who has the legs for the long run that Rusk called for. Or maybe you could say a skillfully honed color palette. He recently presented at a PechaKucha Night of storytelling with the title “Architecture as Art, and Loving Where You Live.”
“I feel lucky as well,” he told the audience, “that I can shine the right amount of light on some of the things that make York special.”
He is an architect and an artist, working in two creative fields. He’s using talents in both vocations to draw iconic York buildings and then to put forth the work on Facebook and Instagram.
“I’m an architect living in York,” his Instagram profile states, “… who loves the city’s beautiful historic architecture. So I’m drawing all of it.”
Jim McClure is a retired editor of the York Daily Record and has authored or co-authored nine books on York County history. Reach him at jimmcclure21@outlook.com.
Source link