Earlier this week, I discussed the new Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index of happy cities. Today, with the help of my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Charlotta Mellander, we take a look at some of the social, demographic, and economic factors that are associated with the happiness and well-being of cities.

There has been considerable debate on the factors that are associated with happiness and well-being at the national level. The well-known Easterlin Paradox suggested that happiness tends to level off after a certain income threshold. Psychologists, notably Edward Diener, have argued that factors such as health, challenging work, and close social relationships, among others, play a considerable role in happiness. Some have even made the case for instituting a new measure of gross national happiness to supplement conventional metrics like gross national product.

Recent studies by Princeton University's Angus Deaton and Justin Wolfers and Betsy Stevenson of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School question the Easterlin Paradox and indicate a closer link between happiness and income across nations. Carol Graham raises the enigma of the "happy peasant and the miserable millionaire" as a way to resolve this apparent paradox. Graham suggests that happiness is relative to one's position in society. Take unemployment for example. Unemployment is crushing for previously employed people in places where gainful employment is the norm. But people in poor countries where unemployment is more the norm find other ways to be happy.

The Gallup-Healthways is the first comprehensive data set we know of that tracks happiness and well-being at the metropolitan level, providing data from a large-scale survey of individuals across 185 metro regions. We look at the associations between the Gallup-Healthways Metro happiness index and key social, demographic, and economic factors. Data-matching reduces the size of our sample to 170 metros - roughly half of all U.S. regions. As usual, we point out that our analysis points only to associations between variables. It does not specify causation or the causal direction of those associations which are questions for future research. Still, the results are interesting across several dimensions.

Income, Wages, and Output: So what is the relationship between metro-level happiness and income, wages, and output? The correlation analysis suggests a moderate relation between wages (.45), income (.4), and economic output per capita. The scatter-graphs below show the relationships are reasonably linear, though there is a better fit for wages and income than for output per capita.

Unemployment: Conventional wisdom and academic studies suggest that a rising unemployment rate would take a big toll on happiness. We find a moderate effect across U.S. metros. The correlation between happiness and the unemployment rate is -.34 and between it and the year-over-year (December 2008 to December 2009) change in unemployment is -.3.

Post-Industrial Economic Structures: In ongoing research, we have been testing the notion that happiness and well-being may be more associated with key features of so-called post-industrial economic structures - namely the shift from physically oriented work to knowledge, professional, and creative occupations and industries - and from lower-skilled to more highly skilled and educated workforces. A large body of research has found a close association between human capital (measured as share of the population with a B.A. and above) and economic development across nations as well as regions; other research has found that human capital levels are becoming more divergent across regions over time. To get at this, we looked at the associations between happiness and human capital, as well as between it and creative-knowledge-professional occupations and blue-collar working class occupations.

Human Capital: Happiness at the city or metro-level is more closely associated with human capital with a correlation of .68 - the strongest correlation of any of the variables we looked at. The scatter-graph below shows a fairly linear relationship.

Creative Class: Happiness is also associated with the creative class, a correlation of .45. The scatter-graph below shows a fairly linear relationship.

High-Tech: Happiness is also associated with locations that have higher concentrations of high-tech industries. We find a correlation of .41 between it and the Milken Institute's Tech-Pole measure.

Working Class: On the other hand, metro-level happiness is negatively associated with the working class, -.34, a finding which is similar to that for states.

Silicon Valley is America's happiest big metro-region and Washington, D.C. is second, according to a new survey of America's 52 largest metro regions by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

The Gallup-Healthways data breaks down well-being into six main categories. Greater D.C. leads in life evaluation. The Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul lead in two categories - emotional health and basic access. Silicon Valley takes first place in two categories as well - physical health and healthy behavior.

That said, Boulder tops the list of small- and medium-size city-regions - and posts the highest happiness index score of any metro. Holland, Michigan; Honolulu, Hawaii; Provo, Utah; and Santa Rosa and Santa Barbara, California also post higher scores than any of the larger regions.

The most unhappy metros are mainly housing-dependent Sunbelt cities of sand and Rustbelt locations that have been hard-hit by the Great Reset. Las Vegas has the dubious distinction of being America's unhappiest large metro.

The Winter Olympics' host city of Vancouver tops the new list of the world's most "liveable" cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit.  Toronto comes in fourth. Canadian and Australian cities do well. Not a single U.S. city makes the top 10. More here.

Check out this CNN video of Detroit's terrific Ice House project. The two men managing the "collaboration with Mother Nature" are dousing the state-donated house with water to make a statement about the frozen housing crisis. It's their hope that this installation art piece will reveal a solution and show that there are plenty of uses for abandoned homes, whether they're used for recycled materials or turned into new homes.

Check out the Ice House website.

How do economic crises affect inequality? In the past, inequality increased prior to economic crises, only to moderate during and after crisis periods. In the present crisis, many expected inequality to decline. Others, however, note that with job loss in the millions and unemployment above 10 percent, while investment bankers continue to rake in big bonuses inequality is on the rise.

A new study by researchers at the Minneapolis Fed and New York University tracks inequality in the U.S. since 1970 (via Mark Thoma). I find that while income inequality has increased during the crisis, consumption inequality has declined.

Recent evidence shows how the distribution of resources changes in recessions in complex ways.

The bottom of the earnings distribution falls off substantially relative to the median, causing earnings inequality to increase in recessions.

This increase is substantially mitigated by government and private transfers. This mitigating effect, together with the fact that households can use borrowing and lending to smooth income declines, causes the consumption distribution to typically move very little during recessions.

The current recession appears somewhat unusual. So far, consumption inequality has declined sharply, perhaps because the consumption-rich have been disproportionately hurt by declining asset prices.

On July 13, 2009, I wrote this comment Pollyanna Has All the Friends.... Here we are exactly six months later and my premonitions have been born out. The Senatorial election in Massachusetts was an earthquake - make no mistake about it - and unless there is change there will be many more. Massachusetts was not just tea-baggers or the health care debacle -- the level of anger on Main Street is rising. This can be seen in the Bernanke renomination fight, which, though likely to be approved, is probably the last stand for what I believe is a Chicago School of Economics-driven flawed analysis of the current crisis. The anger will dramatically grow if, as I expect, the market takes another terrible fall during 2010.

The Obama victory was as fundamental as that of Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s victory heralded the appearance of the mass production industrial working class on the political scene. He galvanized their demands into the New Deal. The result, after World War II, was U.S. global leadership. I suggest everyone read Roosevelt’s first Inaugural Address. It is a statement of vision, leadership, commitment to change, and a recognition that a new order was in birth.

Many of us, me skeptically included, saw Obama as the harbinger of a different sector of the U.S. economy and polity, what Rich has called a “creative class,” moving into power. We all know what has happened since. Essentially, Obama felt it necessary to succor the old order, while not clearing the way for a new sensibility.

In my estimation, President Obama has about one month to dramatically change course or I fear his presidency will, for all intents and purposes, be finished and the nation will have three years of dangerous drift, while a hurricane rages around us. These are the things I think he must do now:

Do you think my July premonitions are that far off where we are today? What is it that will be required to create a transition to a new order?

This week, Forbes and Joel Kotkin released a  list of the "world's smartest cities."

"In today's parlance a "smart" city often refers to a place with a "green" sustainable agenda. Yet this narrow definition of intelligence ignores many other factors--notably upward mobility and economic progress--that have characterized successful cities in the past.

The green-only litmus test dictates cities should emulate either places with less-than-dynamic economies, like Portland, Ore., or Honolulu, or one of the rather homogeneous and staid Scandinavian capitals. In contrast, I have determined my "smartest" cities not only by looking at infrastructure and livability, but also economic fundamentals."

The list included:

1. Singapore

2. Hong Kong

3. Curitiba, Brazil

4. Monterrey, Mexico

5. Amsterdam

6. Seattle, Washington

7. Houston, Texas

8. Charleston, South Carolina

9. Huntsville, Alabama

10. Calgary, Alberta

Are these really the "smartest cities?"

Last week the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association (GERA) had its annual meeting in Santiago, Chile and launched the 2010 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) executive report. The annual meeting was held in a developing country for the first time. The meeting is a mixture of media events, planning meetings, and strategic decision-making. In addition, social events make this a welcome activity.

The 2010 GEM executive report, in addition to reporting on the state of entrepreneurship in the world, had sections on the economic crisis and social entrepreneurship. The main finding was that entrepreneurial activity had declined in the developed countries but not in the developing countries. In other words, do not look to Europe to lead the world in the future. As a founder of the Hungarian team, the so-called transition countries are not going to lead either. The labor force of Europe is in decline and, therefore, Europe and Japan are in no position to provide entrepreneurial leadership in the future as they age.

By the year 2050, most of the labor force in Europe will be aging and the under 40 labor force will be in the developing world according to my colleague Jack Goldstone at George Mason University. In other words, the creative, innovative and entrepreneurial talent will be in Brazil, Chile, India, China, and Indonesia. The developing world will have to provide the economic leadership for the market. While the world will be flat, hot, and crowded, the creative talent will also be in these places. GERA is uniquely positioned to measure and track the progress that the world is making in shifting the creative epicenter from Europe to Asia and South America.

This seminal meeting of the GERA represents the first step of the association in this transition. After spending the first 10 years of this decade trying to figure out if Denmark is more entrepreneurial than the United States, we are now shifting to measuring the entrepreneurial progress of the developing countries. As Richard Florida said to me a few years ago, the young are the same all over the world. If that is the case they will surely be the leaders in the future.

So last Wednesday I was invited to York University to come do a little guest lecture in a class called Creativity and Cities in Urban Politics and Planning 4800. Heather McLean, the courses professor, is a PhD candidate and member of the City Institute at York University but I first heard about her in an article entitled "Why Richard Florida's Honeymoon is Over." She teaches a cool course, with a cooler M.O: Subject the creativity discourse that is leading much of contemporary urban policy to some intelligent criticism.

By looking at an old Wall Street Journal article and two very different conversations that emerged about it here on the Creative Class Exchange - one that is perhaps more celebratory of how the creative class theory is attributed to this situation, and one that I wrote that is perhaps a bit more critical of the role creative class theory might be playing - I tried to impart on them that it's really important that they bring their content to the table when looking at dominant theories, and to sift these theories through that content to see if they pan out.  That content could be their cultural leaning, their ethnicity, age, political leaning, or whatever lens that they are most invested in, but it's important that they understand that they're empowered by that lens to see things that others who aren't as invested as they are don't see.  They should ask questions about what they see. Or moreover, what they don't. Prepping to do that lecture brought me back to when I first met Richard, which is kind of an interesting story about the value of critique and about the mettle of Richard Florida as well I guess.

So before all of this DJ/bureaucrat business I was a young(er) DJ/student/journalist writing for the Ottawa Xpress. In school I was studying cities, and for the paper I was writing music and reviewing books. Richard Florida was coming to town for the Tulip Festival, and his then new book Who's Your City? had come into the office to be reviewed. I'd just been into a lot of Richard's research journals, and the Elizabeth Currid stuff was just coming out too, so this was an interesting time to be talking. In all of the reading that I had done I really didn't see myself represented in the creative class - either as a Hiphopper, or as a North American Black person. So in our interview I respectfully stepped to him on those issues.

From my article/review of Who's Your City?:

"I am a rock-ist," he admits, "and my students have informed me of this, but I'm learning." As it turns out, Florida reveals that one of his future projects will look at the relationship between music and the city, and that he was already taking that opportunity to look at hip-hop culture...

and then on race...

How is the movement of the creative class affecting these [racial] communities? "Probably the reason I don't write about it [race] is that when I wrote about gay issues, I had a gay collaborator. So I felt, as a straight person, that I could then work on gay issues. It's probably a part of my age, I'm very sensitive when trying to weigh in on those issues."

And while I'm the first to recognize that this isn't him leaping to engage that problematic, you ask him a direct question, you get a direct answer. At the end of the interview we kept talking about where I saw room for engagement within his theory, and eventually we started doing this thing that you're reading right now.

Recently there has been a lot of good critique of the Creative Class and Creative City theories. Here in Ottawa at Carleton, Sarah Brouillette  is studying the Commodification of Creativity. Profs like Heather and groups like the the Creative Class Struggle are keeping a critical voice in the discourse.  And as much as there are things that I think it would be interesting to see Richard address, one thing I can say about him is that he's always willing to host me to address those things, and likewise with other critics. A good example is Ian David Moss' incredibly fine grained and detailed deconstruction of the creative class over at Createquity.com, and Richard's response to that criticism. Or while I was in Toronto visiting the MPI a few months ago I met Philipp Oehmke who had just spent time doing the interview that leads the article he wrote about the Hamburg squatters in Das Spiegel which captures the nuance of the situation really well.

In this discourse the traditional skirmish lines seem to be skewed. All of the ire from the left seem to evaporate into a vacuum of hugs from what we thought was the right. In Hamburg the artists occupy, and the city sends talkers and crews to make sure the building is safe. In my interview, I ask this guy tough questions about the exclusion of race and Hiphop from his ideas and he invites me to answer them myself on his site. Coming from the "Fight the Power" generation, this is certainly not what I expected when challenging a dominant ideological discourse. Sometimes I don't know what the hell is going on myself. All I can say is that, for now at least, it seems to be as broad a conversation as you want to have. Yes there are still barriers but, surprisingly, listening seems to be an emerging trend. I think people are still correct to question the root of that  - why are people listening? - but in my opinion, it's more important that people like those students are taking the time to grow and use their critical skills to make this discourse broad enough that their content and concerns can either find their place within this discourse or expose where improvement of it is necessary. That's a creative class if I've ever seen one.

Music.

I was talking to a 60-year-old, retired entrepreneur at a party the other night. Successful guy, very sharp. I asked him what he thinks is next for Florida and he said he did not have much hope for Florida, mostly due to lack of visionary leadership. Then he said something that really struck me. He suggested that Florida is on a course to reset to its old state of being “cheap, sunny, and dumb.”

That really struck me because while we are all talking about the great reset that is going on, I had not thought to ask the question, "What does Florida reset to?” And he may very well be right. At the state level, we are relaxing the rules for developers  to encourage even more sprawl to try to kick-start our construction industry again. We are actually lowering impact fees in places. We are lowering protections on the environment. This seems like a reset towards “cheap, sunny, and dumb.” There are powerful forces and attitudes that could very well push Florida back into this reset mode. And that is pretty scary.

While we all generally agree that this reset is needed and welcomed in some cases, we should be careful that we don’t reset back to a point so far back that we actually lose too much of our hard won progress. We all have to ask ourselves and our leadership what the plan and vision is for this reset. Each community is facing this and we act as if the reset is just something that will happen. That is not the case, yet I hear far too little  debate as to how we actively shape the reset.

A massive congratulatory shout out and thank you is due to Devon Ostrom and the Beautiful City Alliance on behalf of the city of Toronto. With little but an imperative to act, a willingness to collaborate, and the long-suffering of an ascetic, this determined group of young people were able to establish some cultural sustainability within the city by successfully petitioning council for a new tax on billboards, with a percentage of the monies generated going to a fund for city beautification through local arts. The billboard tax passed a day or so ago, at $10.4 million in revenue annually along with the new bylaw! But don't take it from me.

From Beautifulcity.ca:

This massive step forward means that thousands of arts projects will eventually be funded and that many of the problems associated with excessive and illegal billboard signage are finally being addressed... It needed to be done this way to get it through Council at the amount necessary to compensate Torontonians properly for use of public space -- and not have a bunch of Councillor's personal projects and agendas eat away at the allotment. To be short, it was the best way to get a clean vote.

While some councilors with their eyes on the corporate dollar are non-plussed right now, I can't imagine that this is really so bad for them. Canadian cities have a very limited set of tax-tools that they can use to generate income and a disproportionate amount of it comes from property tax. Moving in the direction of diversification in this way should be welcome, even if it feels pyrrhic from their perspective. Especially with all of the public buy-in. Not to mention the overwhelming media support. If you have some time, definitely read up on this initiative. It was a very, very long and tough battle that tested organization, commitment, and resolve but this alliance of artists and supporters got it done.

I had actually been asked to depute on behalf of the alliance before the Toronto city council, but because things were constantly getting pushed back it wasn't possible. While I won't break out the full deputation here, I'll riff on what I wrote briefly to reflect upon the victory.

So Mississauga, where my parents eventually moved to, is west of Toronto. This means to come into the city there were two ways to do it. Either by car taking the Gardiner Expressway, or by public transit - the bus-to-subway mission. Both ways gave you very different entries into the city and I loved them both.

When you're flying down the Gardiner, just as you hit the curve by Ontario Place, there's this straightaway where the city just opens up, and it's pretty breathtaking. One of the things that can be seen is an impressive stretch of billboards on the left. I always liked reading the advice that would come across the Inglis billboard or seeing the new 3-D ones that the airlines would sometimes mount. I had no idea how or when they changed them, and that was cool to me. But then coming in by the subway there were other things to see, particularly the wall in between Keele and Dundas West stations. It was and still is one of the most famed graffiti spots in the city and a place where I saw some of the most iconic images of my young life. That space between those two stations was endearing me to the city every time I'd pass it by. The idea that there were people out there making the city more beautiful of their own volition made it seem more alive and vibrant to me.

This initiative is a way to bring those two experiences of very different art into a mutually supportive relationship, and there's something about that that's really cool.

Now, toasting to success, let's take a look around this beautiful city with the homie Drake:

httpv://www.youtube.com/w...

This week, thousands have flown across oceans or traversed continents to be in Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference.  There, politicians, scientists, rock stars, journalists, and academics will discuss reducing the carbon dioxide and monoxide humans are spewing into the atmosphere.

It's intriguing to me that thousands of people, all theoretically committed to reducing their own carbon footprints, see a reason to be in Copenhagen, rather than listening in from home via technology.

The actual scheduled events, speeches, etc. can all be viewed at home. A few bloggers and writers on site could provide additional context. Yet, thousands had to go for themselves.

Two key reasons why they likely traveled reveals some workplace trends for the 21st century:

1. Making human connections in today's global economy trumps carbon concerns.

A main reason why so many are in Copenhagen this week is to network -- to meet other world leaders, scientists, activists, journalists. Sharing ideas, comparing notes could result in new ideas and innovations going forward. Moreover, making new friends and allies never hurts. Finally, even knowing one's enemies better can be worth the trip.

Lesson for workplace trends: Even the most ecologically committed will likely commute to the office regularly (even if they telecommute some days), as well as travel to business and client meetings. They'll do this not for the formal agenda, but for the informal spin-offs from unexpected encounters and conversations.

2.  Being seen at the important meetings is crucial to many people's personal "brands." One reason leaders like U.S. President Obama and Canadian PM Harper are going is because a significant number of voters at home are concerned that their country's government is not doing enough to help the environment. Other aspiring green leaders would not be considered "players" if they were not there, mingling, networking, and being seen.

Lesson for workplace trends: Image is important. And again, appears to trump carbon concerns. (I assume some at the climate change conference will "green wash" their trips by purchasing "offsets" involving planting trees in Africa -- but this is not the same as not flying or driving in the first place.)

There are likely additional lessons, but those two stand out for me.

Your thoughts?

The differences between the U.S. and Canadian housing markets astound me on a day-to-day basis. In my neighborhood in Toronto, housing prices are up and homes sell in a few days, some with multiple bids. In Detroit, where we visited for Thanksgiving, you can't sell - or in some cases, even give - houses away. Visiting Miami for Art Basel, the numbers of houses and condos on the market are staggering - stunning, brand new towers remain virtually empty.

The Cleveland Fed reports on the key differences between the U.S. and Canadian markets (pointer via Marginal Revolution).

Despite their many points of similarity, housing markets in the United States and Canada have fared quite differently since the onset of the financial crisis. Unlike the U.S., Canada has not experienced a dramatic increase in mortgage defaults, nor has any Canadian bank required a government bailout. As a result, observers such as The Economist have pointed to Canada as “a country that got things right.” ...

The Canada and U.S. housing market comparison suggests that relaxed lending standards likely played a critical role in the U.S. housing bust. Monetary policy was very similar in both countries from 2000 to 2008, but housing prices rose much faster in the U.S. than in Canada. This suggests that some other factor both drove the more rapid appreciation in U.S. prices and set the stage for the housing bust. A likely candidate is cross-country differences in the structure and regulation of subprime lending markets ...

But while subprime lending also increased in Canada, the subprime market remains much smaller than in the U.S. The most cited estimate is that subprime lenders had a market share of roughly 5 percent in 2006—compared to 22 percent in the U.S. (Mortgage Architects, 2007). Moreover, the Canadian subprime market never expanded significantly into newer products, such as interest-only or negative-amortization mortgages, whose popularity grew rapidly in the U.S. from 2003 to 2006. Instead, the Canadian subprime market mainly offered products popularized in the U.S. during the 1990s, such as longer amortization periods for loans (from 25 to 40 years), and mainly targeted near-prime borrowers.

Securitization has also been less common in Canada than in the United States, with roughly 25 percent of Canadian mortgages securitized in 2007 versus nearly 60 percent in the U.S. The Canadian securitization market has grown rapidly over the past decade, rising from roughly 5 percent of mortgages in 1998 to over 25 percent in 2008  ...

Perhaps the simplest story is that Canada was “lucky” to be a late adopter of U.S. innovations rather than an innovator in mortgage finance. While the subprime share of the Canadian market was small, it was growing rapidly prior to the onset of the U.S. subprime crisis. In response to the U.S. crisis, some subprime lenders exited the Canadian market due to difficulties in securing funding. In addition, the Canadian government moved in July 2008 to tighten the standards for mortgage insurance required for high LTV loans originated by federally regulated financial institutions. This further limited the ability of Canadian banks to directly offer subprime-type products to borrowers.

There are also several institutional details that played a role. The Canadian market lacks a counterpart to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, both of which played a significant role in the growth of securitization in the U.S. In addition, bank capital regulation in Canada treats off-balance sheet vehicles more strictly than the U.S., and the stricter treatment reduces the incentive for Canadian banks to move mortgage loans to off-balance sheet vehicles. Finally, as noted above, the fact that the government-mandated mortgage insurance for high LTV loans issued by Canadian banks effectively made it impossible for banks to offer certain subprime products. This likely slowed the growth of the subprime market in Canada, as nonbank intermediaries had to organically grow origination networks.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Milwaukee, WI, for the first time (thank you FUEL Milwaukee!). And visiting cities for the first time, to me, is particularly exciting. Arriving for the first time is a pure and unadulterated experience. First impressions matter and how a city presents itself to a first-time visitor is very important. I learned this from my friend Charles Landry.

[caption id="attachment_13530" align="alignright" width="340" caption="Milwaukee Art Museum"][/caption]

I arrived via the airport with the typical location outside of city. My host takes the highway toward the city. As we approach the Hoan Bridge, we pass amid the Port of Milwaukee. On both sides, there are mountains of bulk materials and cranes. While not beautiful, there is the appearance of activity and a muscularity that says “we work here.” As we crest the bridge (with its own very strange design element) I am startled because the city presents itself there in panorama. The city in the hills to the left, the waters of Lake Michigan to the right. And to the right, near the lake, your eye is drawn to the white sails of the Santiago Calatrava masterpiece at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  It looks so different and unexpected in the tableau that one cannot help but to stare. Unexpected because this is the Midwest where modern iconic design is not the norm and that is not a shot; I am originally  from the Midwest!  More photos click here.

While many question the value of “starchitects” and iconic design, I have to say that my impression of Milwaukee was and is shaped in no small part because of that building. It is different and it says something about Milwaukee that no amount of advertising and marketing could equal. It says in a profound way “we are not what you expect” and that Milwaukee is looking to the future and beyond the beer brewery image of its past. The building says it in a visible and demonstrable way that one cannot deny.

Cities that are arguing over the cost/benefits of such iconic architecture should consider the context in which the new building will occur. In starchitect-rich Singapore, one more Calatrava or Libeskind is just keeping up with the crowd. In cities with a dearth of quality architecture (lots of those) or cities that need to redefine themselves in the 21st century, a new building can be a catalyst for new design and a whole host of other values.

About 14 months into the downturn in Canada, about 20 months in the U.S.A., and I've been examining how the recession has affected workplaces and what some longer-term implications may be. Today, I offer a Canadian perspective. I invite you to add your own. Next week I'll try to create an American list, or compare and contrast the recessionary experience in the two countries.

Four ways the recession may have changed creative class workplaces in Canada

What else?

Here's the abstract for a new paper on said with Charlotta Mellander and Kevin Stolarick.

Economists have argued that individuals choose locations that maximize their economic position and broad utility. Sociologists have found that social networks and social interactions shape our satisfaction with our communities. Research, across various social science fields, finds that beauty has a significant effect on various economic and social outcomes. Our research uses a large survey sample of individuals across US locations to examine the effects of beauty and aesthetics on community satisfaction. We test for these effects in light of other community-level factors such as economic security and employment opportunities; the supply of public goods; the ability for social exchange, that is to meet people and make friends; artistic and cultural opportunities, and outdoor recreation; as well as individual demographic characteristics such as gender, age, presence of children, length of residence, income and education levels, and housing values. The findings confirm that perceived beauty or aesthetic character of a location has a positive and significant effect on perceived community satisfaction. It is one of the most significant factors alongside economic security, good schools, and the perceived capacity for social interaction. We also find community-level factors to be significantly more important than individual demographic characteristics in explaining community satisfaction.

The full paper is over at the MPI site, here.

Here's my interview with BusinessWeek's Michelle Conlin:

Richard Florida: The U.S. Is Facing a 'Talent Shift'

The bestselling author worries about the consequences of so many American-educated MBAs starting their careers in Asia

Richard Florida, the author of the bestselling books The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, is a preeminent thinker about human capital and its importance for business. His new book, The Great Reset, due out in April, argues that a true recovery will require a complete break from the consumption lifestyle and a move towards a new economic model that is actually sustainable.

Florida is the director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and a professor of business and creativity at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Bloomberg BusinessWeek talked with Florida about how many American-educated MBAs are no longer beginning the Grand Tour of their careers in the U.S.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Some of the best and brightest American-educated kids are seeing their future—in Asia. Does this worry you?

Richard Florida: From the beginning, I've been worried about this talent shift. Two things are happening. Countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are going after our best and brightest. In China and India, the best and the brightest are staying. One of the biggest tools foreign companies have is our business schools. All these great companies are coming to recruit. This shift is happening in real time right in front of our eyes. I see it in the Rotman School where I teach.

What are you seeing there?

I did the commencement address this year. I was blown away. In enormous numbers, the students were going to China, to India, to the Middle East. To a person, they said they found much more opportunity and possibility for career advancement over there. My jaw dropped. I literally could not believe how many kids.

The trend looks pervasive to you. Yet there's radio silence from policymakers.

People in Washington are brain dead about this.

How to save Detroit, how to stimulate the mortgage industry. This flight of talent out of this country is actually a much more fundamental problem than anything talked about in Washington. Keeping top talent here as well as attracting top talent to our shores is a fundamental economic advantage. I don't think most people want to admit what's happening. They don't want to see it.

Why the denial?

I think we in the U.S. have taken this for granted for so long. When I see the figures that 50% of all patented innovation in the U.S. comes from foreign-born inventors, I think that the important core of American ingenuity is not American ingenuity. It's the ability to attract the world's best people. That's part of what made Hollywood great—European directors.

How do you see this playing out?

I don't think any one country will dominate us. But if China picks up its share of global talent, and then India, and then Australia—you add up those percentages, and they create an enormous structural disadvantage for us. It erodes our competitive advantage. The U.S. always used to benefit from these big crises. In the 1870s, we got a lot of immigrant skills. In the 1930s, a lot of Europeans poured in. Now look what's happening. I mean, imagine Silicon Valley without Andy Grove.

Americans following the Olympics at home have been almost as pumped as their athletes are about their record haul of medals. "I have looked (at the medal count)," Viktoria Rebensburg told USA Today, after picking up a gold medal in the women's giant slalom, "But I didn't expect I could give a medal to this thing. I never thought that would happen, so it's cool. And maybe we will win this."

The United States hasn't dominated a Winter Olympics since 1932. With 32 medals earned thus far, statistics guru Nate Silver predicts the U.S. will end the games with 34, ahead of Germany with 30, my adopted home-base of Canada with 26, and Norway with 23.

But wait a minute. The USA is a much bigger country than any of these. With 300 million-plus people it's nearly four times the size of Germany, 10 times bigger than Canada, and 60-plus times bigger than Norway.

So with the help of my statistically minded colleagues at the University of Toronto's Martin Prosperity Institute, I decided to take a different kind of look. We rated and ranked medal performance by the size of each country's population. We've dubbed this new ranking system the Winter Olympic Medals Per Capita Metric, WMPC for short, where we rank medals per one million people.

Now the results get interesting.

The U.S. ends up in 19th place, with roughly one medal per one million people, less than Australia and about the same as Poland. Germany ends up 14th and Canada ranks 10th with five times the take as the USA. The top finisher is tiny Norway with four-plus medals per one million of its people.

If Silver's projections hold, the U.S. will end up in 21st place by the end of the games. Norway will top the list with five medals per one million people, followed by Austria in a distant second place with 1.9. Slovenia will come in third with 1.4, then Switzerland (1.3), Sweden (1.1), Latvia (1), Finland (.9), and Canada (.8).

What happens when we track medals historically, going back to 1924? The United States comes in 14th, with slightly less than 0.8 medals per one million people. Norway is far and away the dominant Winter Games force, taking home a whopping 62 medals per one million people. Scandinavia, the Nordic countries, and the European alpine nations are also powerhouses, with Finland earning 29, Austria 23, Switzerland 16, and Sweden 13. Estonia and the Netherlands produce about five medals per one million. Canada produces four - still five times the American rate and eighth overall. (Excluded from our analysis are the Soviet Union and several other former Eastern bloc nations that were initially bigger countries that have subsequently broken into smaller parts.)

Looked at this way, the USA seems a lot less dominant than it first appears.

It's been hard to justify high-speed rail (HSR) projects in terms of conventional cost-benefit analysis. But, it may be time to rethink - and broaden  - the way we think of the benefits of HSR. HSR's benefits are usually thought of in terms of lowering transport costs by reducing problems like gridlock, pollution, and travel time. But the real benefit of HSR may turn on its ability to expand economic growth, according to a new analysis by my colleagues at the Martin Prosperity Institute.

There are three main mechanisms through which high-speed rail can help expand the economy, according to the MPI study. First, HSR expands the labor pool available to firms, bringing talented workers from nearby centers within commuting distance and thus expanding the quantity and quality of available employees. Second, HSR makes more jobs available to workers without making them have to relocate and move to a new home. Third, HSR extends the benefits of other expensive, productivity-enhancing infrastructure such as airports across broad regions. International airports, major research universities, and reference libraries are all more financially viable and internationally competitive when they serve a larger population. High-speed rail allows them to build the scale they need to achieve world-class excellence and also spreads their high costs across a wider population.

The MPI report is here.

Here's a map of job creation from The Gallup Organization. It's based on approximately 100,000 Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted throughout 2009 with employed adults in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. It provides a clear picture of the evolving economic geography of The Great Reset.

On the losing side of job creation, Rustbelt states, especially Michigan and less so Minnesota, continue to be hard hit, along with the "housing-crash" states of Nevada, California, and Arizona. Northeastern states -  Rhode Island, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and New Hampshire - also fare poorly. In the west, Oregon and Idaho also see low rates of job creation.

The best-performing states in terms of job creation are energy economies - North Dakota, Louisiana, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, Alaska, and New Mexico, as well as Nebraska; and those with economies that benefit from federal spending, Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. More here.

Here's a cool map based on over 210 million Facebook profiles (h/t: Jason Rentfrow). Compiled by Pete Warden, it plots the connections between places that share Facebook friends. The map divides the U.S. into seven distinct locational clusters with names like "Stayathomia,"  "Mormonia," and "Socalistan." More here.

Unemployment continues to rise in U.S. metro regions, according to the December figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Unemployment rates were higher in December than a year earlier in 371 of the 372 metropolitan areas and lower in one area," according to the report. The Detroit metro continued to post the highest level of unemployment - 14.9 percent  But Las Vegas saw the largest increase in their jobless rate, which grew by 4.4 percentage points over the past year. The number of metros with unemployment rates of more than 10 percent more than doubled from 42 in December 2008 to 138 in December 2009. Of regions with more than one million people, Oklahoma City and Greater Washington, D.C. posted the lowest unemployment rates - 6.0 and 6.2 percent, respectively.

The full list of unemployment by metro region is here.

Jonathan Schwartz, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, announced his resignation via Twitter, deploying haiku to boot. His message:

Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more

This illustrated his frustration surrounding the acquisition by Oracle.

Normally, I recommend (especially to young people) to resist the urge to be cheeky and keep it to the point and be professional. This article suggests that Conan O’Brien should have been more diplomatic, although his détente final words may have cleared things up.

What was your most creative quitting story? What quitting fantasies have you had?

Seems appropriate with Valentine’s Day around the corner to ask: How many of you personally have or know people who have met their spouse, partner, wife, husband, significant other in college? This is certainly one way Mighty EDU transforms lives.

According to the National Marriage Survey, college is still the place where 25 percent of men and 15 percent of women meet their first spouse, a steep decline from 50 years ago but still impressive. And, these stats omit second marriages, faculty hook-ups, admin nuptials, and, not to forget, the occasional faculty and student knot-tying. When I look at my own closest friends, roughly 42 percent of them were connected via a primary (e.g. same college) or secondary (e.g. study abroad program) college experience.

Hmm, maybe it is time for single folk to forgo Match.com and enroll in a class to learn and be struck by Cupid’s arrow as they stroll across campus this lovely spring.

Launched today - the new Richard Florida fan page on Facebook!

Come join our growing community and get all the updates about Richard, his books, events, blog posts, and more in one of your favorite social networking locations.

As one looks around the economic landscape I am struck by the devastation. One number stands out above all others. One in five males between the ages of 25 and 55 is out of work! That is a staggering number. The numbers are not going back to anything "normal" anytime soon according to the IMF. Financial crises followed by recessions do not return to normal levels of employment for over a decade. Why you might ask? The answer I guess is that the levels of debt need to be worked down. Everyone owes everyone money and none pay anyone. Second, the recession destroys real capital. In this situation it was housing. It will take years to work off the excesses of the housing crisis.

So what does entrepreneurship have to do with the recession? If we take what we know today, entrepreneurs and innovation play a vital role in the economy. But can they help us in the great recession? In other words, what policy should we be pursuing to move the unemployment rate below 10 percent and back into the neighborhood of 5 percent? We know that new firms are important. They create most of the net jobs.  However, only a small percent, perhaps 4 percent, create almost all of the jobs in any given four-year period. And this seems to hold up in different times, different countries, and different industries.

So how do we forge a policy? Two stories are told out there. First we know that age and size are important variables. And we know that age appears to be more important than size. In other words, we should target firms based on age not size. The two stories out there are one by Zoltan Acs and the other by Carl Schramm. In a highly influential study, Acs found that the average high impact firm was about 20 years old and came in all sizes, small, medium, and large. Schramm, on the other hand, using a Census Bureau study, found that firms less than five years old created almost all of the jobs independent of size.  They both cannot be right.

However, if we are interested in short-term policy solutions and not real economic growth, we should help stimulate solo self-employed. They have a start-up rate that is three times as large as firms with employees. They start easily but also go out of business quickly. So an effective policy would be to make it easier for them to stay in business longer.

A simple policy would be to cut the self-employment tax, not over 15 percent of all new solo self-employed firms to zero for three years. If they hired any employees we should cut the employer share 7.5 percent for three years also. This would greatly increase the survival rate for these new firms. Of course this is not a long-term solution because many of these firm will contribute very little to productivity, economies of scale, or wealth creation. But they will pull down the unemployment rate.

The impact on the deficit would not be great since many of these people would not have survived to pay payroll taxes anyway. Once the economy picks up the issue of long-run growth can be addressed. But in the short run, let's get people working.

Last weekend, we went to a benefit for Mercy Corps relief work in Haiti in a small theater. It was an eclectic all-star cast - Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes from Pink Martini, singer/actress Storm Large, the hip hop/rapper Cool Nutz, jazz artists Janice Scroggins and Linda Hornbuckle, and others. It was impromptu, put together in six days but sold out. We sat toward the back and when I looked out what I saw were grey and bald heads, the average age was probably 50+. But in other venues, all of these performers draw big young crowds. Tickets were $30, so price wasn’t a major barrier.

It made me remember that the previous weekend we went to a staged reading of a play by a small, semi-experimental theater company and again the audience was geezers (me included).

So I’m wondering, is there an age cultural divide in venues? It doesn’t surprise me to see mostly older folks at classical events, but these are the kind of things I went to in my 20's. Richard wrote in Rise about the creative class’ move toward experiential entertainment. If the benefit had been in a dance venue would the crowd have been different? And if there were a DVD made of the play or it were posted on YouTube, would it get a younger audience?

I’m curious what you do when you go out, or for that matter do at home for entertainment with your computer. Do younger folks need to either experience things only virtually or viscerally? Is theater seating going the way of the print media? What does this mean for American culture?

The one and only Yoko Ono (@yokoono) is now following Richard on Twitter.

Become privy to Richard's thought-provoking Tweets today: @Richard_Florida.

Who are your favorite folks to follow on Twitter?

Richard recently appeared on Big Think to share his ideas on how the Creative Class is impacting the way businesses think.

"Now more than ever, companies need unconventional thinking to work within the new rules set by the economic recession. Richard Florida has persuasively demonstrated how artists, scientists, engineers, writers, musicians and more can revitalize an entire city from urban decay. With today’s companies dealing with a deep recession, what can members of the Creative Class do for businesses?"

Check out the interview here.

Richard Florida is in Boston today at the Massachusetts Municipal Association, serving as the keynote speaker for their annual meeting. From their website:

The MMA Annual Meeting and Trade Show is the largest regular gathering of Massachusetts local government officials. The two-day event features educational workshops, nationally recognized speakers, awards programs, a large trade show, and an opportunity to network with municipal officials from across the state.

The MMA’s Annual Meeting is your best single opportunity to:

• Learn about solutions to problems facing your community

• Meet people who can assist you with resources and ideas

• Learn about valuable products and services for cities and towns

• Attend programs that will strengthen your ability to lead and serve your community

What opportunities does your community offer to engage with other residents and incite change?

Despite the recent The Economist magazine proclamation of pending equality in the workplace, evidence suggests that the situation is more complex.

Commentators on my recent post here at Creative Class raised several good points:

Alan Says:  Start celebrating when women earn 50% of total salaries – I expect the champagne will remain on ice for a long time/ probably forever.  Sorry of this seems pessimistic.

Jana Says:   There’s a big difference between women being 50% of the workforce and women being equally represented in the workforce. My guess is that the majority of the women in the study are in lower level positions than the men. An example being that in one company I worked for was that the majority of the accounting department was female, but these were people inputting invoices, doing reconciliations and payroll. The counterpart was that the head of the department was male.

Without a better look at the statistics I’m not sure if this is something to celebrate.

The folks at Economix blog also weighed in:

Furthermore, the Current Population Survey data show that women are more than twice as likely as men to work part time (24.6 percent in 2008 compared with 11.1 percent in 2008). A measure of equal participation in paid employment should take that difference in hours into account.

The Economist notes that women remain underrepresented in management positions but registers considerable optimism concerning current trends.

By contrast, recent research by the sociologists Philip Cohen, Matt Huffman and Stefanie Knauer showed that women’s entry into management positions in the United States slowed significantly in the 1990s.

The consensus seems to be that The Economist jumped the gun in declaring a female victory.

In light of this discussion, it's worth re-examining and considering Penelope Trunk's long-held belief that women -- along with younger generations invading the workforce -- have changed the entire workplace game. I agree with Trunk that for many women and men, the new career (or should I say life) goal isn't to maximize salary but instead to maximize life experiences, including those of raising children, spending time with friends and family, and generally enjoying the rich offerings life gives.

From a 2005  Penelope Trunk blog post:

Forget the glass ceiling because it's about to become irrelevant. Not because women are finally going to get to the top of Fortune 500 companies in forces of more than two companies at a time. That may happen, but no one's holding their breath. The glass ceiling is going to become irrelevant because the women who are coming into the workforce now see what's above that glass and they are uninterested.

.... five years after earning an MBA, 40% of women are working from home. Often the press writes about this statistic like it's a travesty, but I think it's great. It's an achievement that these women have decided they can find success on their own terms instead of having to fit themselves through paths that were established for men, decades ago.

The disenchantment with corporate life is not limited to women: eighty percent of men aged 20 to 39 said that a flexible job to accommodate kids takes a higher priority than doing challenging work or earning a high salary.

Many women with children -- and increasingly their male partners as well -- will gladly forgo career advancement, and the higher salaries that go along with it, in return for a more flexible job that allows for a better and more fulfilling family life.

Moreover, many organizations have much less hierarchical structures today. This suits the many women and men who value life experiences over corporate ladder-climbing. Working on interesting projects and with great people is a life experience they treasure -- climbing a corporate ladder increasingly is not.

Your thoughts?

Forty percent of employees in a survey were more interested in career development than pay and benefits.

From the Saturday Globe and Mail:

Career development prospects top the criteria for job candidates considering a new employer, a new survey finds.

Forty percent of 1,300 respondents to a survey by staffing service Right Management Inc. said the potential for career development is the most important factor when choosing a new boss.

That was followed by work-life balance (21 percent); innovative workplace (15 percent); and competitive pay and benefits (12 percent). Only 8 percent cared most about having good rapport with their manager.

My thought here is the answer likely depends upon where you are in your life. Certainly it makes sense for younger knowledge workers to prioritize career development opportunities as an investment -- pay will come later. For those with young families (especially women, as per last-week's discussion) work-life balance may be more important. And later in life the paycheck may trump everything as retirement looms and university-aged children are needing help.

What would you prioritize?

Here's one hot off the press.

A new paper with Jason Rentfrow and Charlotta Mellander looks at the role of post-industrial structures - that is, the creative class and human capital as well as values toward openness and tolerance - on the happiness of  nations.  Our main hypothesis is that  these structures and values shape happiness in ways that go beyond the previously examined effects of income. Here's more from the abstract:

Drawing from previous theory and research, we measured post-industrial structures in terms of higher-level education and the share of the workforce engaged in knowledge-based/creative work. Post-industrial values were measured in terms of acceptance of racial and ethnic minorities and of gays and lesbians. Our measure of happiness is derived from a large-scale global survey of life satisfaction conducted by the Gallup Organization. We controlled for income in our analyses and divided our sample into high- and low-income countries to explore whether income has different effects on countries at different stages of economic development.

Our results indicate that post-industrial structures and values have a stronger effect on happiness in higher-income countries where the standard of living has surpassed a certain level. Income, on the other hand, has a stronger impact on happiness in low-income countries. Thus, we propose that when income rises beyond a certain level, a new system of post-industrial values centered on education, creativity, and openness become better predictors of happiness than income.

The full paper is here.

Just finished a new paper in what's become an interesting - and fun - new area for me. Our research examines the factors that are associated with smoking and obesity - two significant health problems and contributors to leading causes of death.

There's been a lot of research on smoking and obesity among individuals and some which looks at geographic patterns. Still, what we find is interesting. There is considerable variation in smoking and obesity across states. And smoking and obesity are both closely associated with post-industrial socioeconomis structures, that is high levels of knowledge; professional, creative work; and high levels of college-educated adults. The results holds even when we control for the level of economic output.

What this all seems to mean is that places that have transitioned to postindustrialism go beyond economics and innovation. In addition to generating better-paying jobs and having higher levels of income and innovation, these sorts of places appear to have better health outcomes as well, and they do so in ways that go beyond the effects of just higher levels of economic output. The effects of these structures work in addition to the effects of Gross State Product per capita. The full paper is here.

Last week President Obama announced that he would provide $8 billion of funds to study and plan high-speed rail systems in the U.S. My state of California received $2 billion to study a high-speed train link between San Francisco and Los Angeles. This is to go with a $10 billion bond issue that state voters approved for feasibility studies and right-of-way acquisition. As an aside, California voters have been approving bond issues for anything and everything for the last two decades, but never considering how the bonds will be paid. Now the state is bankrupt and we are studying and planning a high-speed rail system, while squeezing our universities, releasing criminals (not such a bad idea for those convicted of victimless crimes), chopping existing mass transit, and firing teachers. Go figure.

But this is not what worries me the most. We are studying a high-speed intercity rail system, when all over California and the nation, while dramatically increasing fares and cutting back mass transit service. The Bay Area BART is laying off workers, increasing fares, and will probably have to cut services. The Sacramento area transit system is laying off workers, cutting service, and raising fares. Atlanta’s MARTA is raising fares, curtailing service, and laying off workers. The New York MTA is increasing commuter fares and cutting service. You get the picture.

The bullet trains in Japan are so convenient because of the excellent mass transit when you get to your destination. Mass transit is what makes the northeast corridor trains work.

Does it make sense to pay to plan and study high-speed train lines while the existing energy saver and public amenity that makes cities more livable -- mass transit -- is being dismantled? Why not support and improve existing mass transit first? How are we going to have great cities without a functional mass transit system?

Check out today's Tweets focusing on SAS, one of the largest software companies in the world:

Not following Richard on Twitter? Join the club: @Richard_Florida

I recently had the opportunity to visit Milwaukee, WI, for the first time (thank you FUEL Milwaukee!). And visiting cities for the first time, to me, is particularly exciting. Arriving for the first time is a pure and unadulterated experience. First impressions matter and how a city presents itself to a first-time visitor is very important. I learned this from my friend Charles Landry.

[caption id="attachment_13530" align="alignright" width="340" caption="Milwaukee Art Museum"][/caption]

I arrived via the airport with the typical location outside of city. My host takes the highway toward the city. As we approach the Hoan Bridge, we pass amid the Port of Milwaukee. On both sides, there are mountains of bulk materials and cranes. While not beautiful, there is the appearance of activity and a muscularity that says “we work here.” As we crest the bridge (with its own very strange design element) I am startled because the city presents itself there in panorama. The city in the hills to the left, the waters of Lake Michigan to the right. And to the right, near the lake, your eye is drawn to the white sails of the Santiago Calatrava masterpiece at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  It looks so different and unexpected in the tableau that one cannot help but to stare. Unexpected because this is the Midwest where modern iconic design is not the norm and that is not a shot; I am originally  from the Midwest!  More photos click here.

While many question the value of “starchitects” and iconic design, I have to say that my impression of Milwaukee was and is shaped in no small part because of that building. It is different and it says something about Milwaukee that no amount of advertising and marketing could equal. It says in a profound way “we are not what you expect” and that Milwaukee is looking to the future and beyond the beer brewery image of its past. The building says it in a visible and demonstrable way that one cannot deny.

Cities that are arguing over the cost/benefits of such iconic architecture should consider the context in which the new building will occur. In starchitect-rich Singapore, one more Calatrava or Libeskind is just keeping up with the crowd. In cities with a dearth of quality architecture (lots of those) or cities that need to redefine themselves in the 21st century, a new building can be a catalyst for new design and a whole host of other values.

In her September 3 blog post, "Creative Florida", Rana Florida asked for thoughts about Florida tourism. As a resident of St. Petersburg, Florida, I thought I should respond.

Tourism has long been the golden goose in Florida but it is also a double-edged sword. We have no state income tax in large part due to the sales tax revenue that tourism provides. When the tourists come, the coffers fill and all is well. When we have downturns in the economy or other disruptions (such as hurricanes or 9/11) our budgets shrink. This volatility prevents us from having a predictable revenue stream which in turn means less long-term planning.

For better or worse, tourism also defines Florida. For many it is great to have that identity but I know a lot of creative class entrepreneurs in high-tech who lament that they can't attract talent or VC interest because no one takes Florida seriously as a business environment.

But to me the largest impact of tourism is that it has made us lazy (I say this with love, Florida!). Tourism is easy money and we have coasted on that for too long. When the tourists just arrive with bags of money, why innovate? Why invest in our schools or our infrastructure? Why make the hard tax choices when we can raise the bed tax on hotel rooms or local tax on car rentals? We need to rethink tourism and make it a higher value experience, one that leverages the service economy and makes it more creative and innovative.

Florida had a wake-up call last year when, for the first time since WW2, we had a net outflow of population. That is a seismic shift in the underpinnings of Florida's economy and I hope that it forces us to look at diversifying our economy and making the harder choices of developing industries beyond the beach and theme park.

Fascinating interview with Mariah in The Times of London on selling-out, music business models, creativity, and more (h/t Dan Silver). Money quote:

“I don’t care if the rock-band person thinks, ‘Oh, I’m a sellout’. Well, guess what? They’re a sellout anyway for going to a record company. I’m sorry — you are. You want to just play in bands in bars? Then do that. Or play on the streets. And if someone throws you some dollars, then you can go get a soda. But you could also help somehow merge the soda business with the music business in a way that is creative.”

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions in America. More than 72 million American adults are obese, according to estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics. But obesity varies greatly by state. The map below, from the Centers from Disease Control (CDC), shows the obesity rate for the 50 states, measured as the share of people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) over 30 which the CDC classifies as "obese."

A week or so ago, I looked at the relationship between smoking and a variety of economic, social, and health factors. With a helpful analytical hand from Charlotta Mellander, we found that smoking was significantly correlated with obesity as well as being correlated with education levels, class structure, and other factors. So, we decided to take a quick look at the state-level factors that might be associated with obesity. We ran some simple correlations and scatter-plots between state obesity rates and these factors. As usual, we point out that correlation does not imply causality, but simply points to associations between variables. Still, a number of interesting things stand out.

It should come as little surprise that states with higher levels of obesity have significantly higher rates of death from cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular diseases like hypertension. There is a significant correlation between obesity and death rates from cancer (.7), heart disease (.7), and cerebrovascular disease (.7).

It might be, however, that states with greater percentages of obesity are those where people pay less attention to their health generally or are more likely to engage in risky behavior. And that's what we find at least in the case of smoking which correlates highly with state levels of obesity (.8).

Might obesity be related to states' broader social and psychological climates? To get at this, we looked at the relationship between obesity and a commonly used measure of subjective well-being or happiness developed by the Gallup Organization. Obesity is negatively associated with state happiness (with a correlation of -.6). Since these correlations only reflect associations between variables and not causality, it's hard to say whether this reflects the fact that happier people eat less, are healthier, or are less prone to obesity, or if unhappier people eat more, are unhealthier, or are somehow more prone to obesity, or if both obesity and happiness levels reflect something else. To get at this, we look at the associations between state obesity rates and social and demographic factors below.

Common sense would suggest that more affluent people would have lower levels of obesity and poorer ones higher, and we find such an association. Obesity is correlated with income levels (-.6) and more moderately so with economic output, measured as gross state product per capita (-.4).

One would think that states with greater concentrations of more highly educated people have lower levels of obesity, and that is what we find. States with higher levels of human capital, measured as the percentage of adults with a college degree, have lower levels of obesity (the correlation being -.8).

To what extent does obesity reflect the kind of work people do? We examine the relationships between obesity and three classes of jobs - creative/professional/knowledge jobs, blue-collar working class jobs, and standardized service class jobs like those in food processing and home health care. Obesity is strongly associated with the share of working class jobs (with a correlation of .7). Obesity is negatively correlated with the share of creative class jobs (-.6). Obesity is also negatively correlated with the share of service class jobs (-.4), though more moderately so.

Obesity is lower in states with higher concentrations of artists, musicians, and entertainers (with a correlation of-.6), those with larger concentrations of gays and lesbians (-.5), and immigrants (-.5). This likely reflects broader structural characteristics of those states, as more highly educated states also tend to be more tolerant and open to diversity.

One in five Americans continue to smoke cigarettes, according to a new survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The smoking rate varies from low of 9.2 percent in Utah to a high of 26.6 percent in West Virginia. The map below, from the Wall Street Journal, shows the smoking rate by state.

The data are interesting and they allow us to look at the extent to which smoking is associated with all sorts of things, from more obvious ones like cancer and heart disease to the economic and demographic characteristics of states with higher or lower levels of smoking and even the relationship between smoking and happiness. With a helpful analytical assist from my colleague Charlotta Mellander, we decided to take a quick look. We ran some simple correlations and scatter-plots between state smoking rates and these factors. As usual, we point out that correlation does not imply causality, but simply points to associations between variables. Still, a number of interesting things stand out.

It will come as little surprise that states with higher levels of smoking have significantly higher rates of death from cancer, heart disease, and cerebrovascular diseases like hypertension.  There is a significant correlation between state smoking rates and death rates from cancer (.75), heart disease (.67), and cerebrovascular disease (.59).

It might be, however, that states with greater percentages of smokers are those where people pay less attention to their health generally or are more likely to engage in risky behavior. Consider the relationship between state smoking rates and their levels of obesity, where we find significant association both for obesity among adults (.68) and children (.57).

Might smoking be related to states' broader social and psychological climates? To get at this, we looked at the relationship between smoking and a commonly used measure of subjective well-being or happiness developed by the Gallup Organization. Smoking is negatively associated with state happiness (with a correlation of -.71). Since these correlations only reflect associations between variables and not causality, it's hard to say whether this reflects the fact that happier people smoke less or unhappier ones smoke more, or that both smoking and happiness levels reflect something else. To get at this, we look at the associations between state smoking levels and social and demographic factors below.

Common sense would suggest that more affluent people would smoke less and poorer ones would smoke more, but that's not what the data indicate - at least when comparing states. State smoking levels are not related to state income levels or to Gross State Product per capita; the correlations for both are not statistically significant.

One would think that more highly educated people smoke less. And that is borne out by our analysis. Smoking is reasonably associated with education levels, measured as the percentage of adults with a college degree (with a negative correlation of -.76).

To what extent does smoking reflect the kind of work people do? We examine the relationships between smoking levels and three classes of jobs - creative/professional/ knowledge jobs, blue-collar working class jobs, and standardized service class jobs like those in food processing and home health care. The strongest association is with working class jobs, with a correlation of .5: Smoking is higher in states with a greater concentration of these blue-collar jobs. Smoking is also associated with service class jobs. But here the correlation is negative (-.62). Smoking does not appear to be associated with knowledge-professional-creative jobs, the correlation here is not statistically significant.

That said, smoking rate is associated with concentrations of artists, musicians, and entertainers. Contrary to the stereotypical image of cigarette-puffing bohemians or hipsters, smoking is less prevalent in states with more of these artistic types: The correlation is negative (-.50), and about the same as for education.

Lastly, smoking is negatively correlated with larger concentrations of gays and lesbians, as well as immigrants (both with correlations of roughly -.45). This likely reflects broader structural characteristics of those states, as more highly educated states also tend to be more tolerant and open to diversity.

Digital technology from myspace.com to a recording studio on your laptop means that music can literally be made and distributed anytime, anyplace, and anywhere.  But it is also clear that a great deal of music continues to come out of particular cities and their music scenes.

The graph below, from a new study from my colleagues at the Martin Prosperity Institute ranks the major music locations in the U.S. and Canada. Even before I moved to Toronto I was aware of the musical talent that comes out of Canada: from classic rockers like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young to Rush's brand of rock and pop stars like Nelly Furtado or indie darlings New Pornographers, Arcade Fire, and Feist. So our team at the Institute decided to see what the numbers might tell us about differences between the Canada and U.S. music industries.

The rankings are based on location quotients which gauge the relative concentration of music industry establishments, including record labels, distributors, recording studios, and music publishers.

Interestingly enough, half the top 15 cities are  Canadian. Still, the  United States is home to the two top-ranked cities - Nashville which is literally off-the-chart on this measure and Los Angeles, the center for global entertainment.  Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal all out-rank New York on this score. Atlanta makes the top 15 as do college towns like Austin and Madison, Wisconsin. U.S. establishments are  considerably bigger than their Canadian counterparts, with average receipts of $4.1 million per establishment, nearly eight times the Canadian average of $540,000. But, Canada in fact has about five times the level of music establishments after controlling for population, 5.9 music establishments per $100,000 compared to 1.2 for the U.S.

The full report is here.

There's no shortage of lists of the world's happiest nations or of the happiest of the 50 U.S. states. The folks at the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index have also compiled detailed happiness scores for America's 435 Congressional Districts (see the map below).

The table below shows the 10 highest-scoring and the 10 lowest-scoring congressional districts on the Well-Being Index. The table speaks for itself. The happiest districts are among the most affluent in the nation. Six of the top 10 are affluent and physically magnificent California communities. The least happy districts are mainly places of extreme disadvantage, inner-city neighborhoods in Detroit, Cleveland, South Philly, the Bronx, or Appalachia. There are a couple of slight anomalies - wealthy Grosse Point, Michigan, is lumped together with poor inner-city Detroit neighborhoods (wonder why that would be?), and given the devastation of greater Detroit it's not surprising that even the rich would be less happy then elsewhere. And hipster Williamsburg is lumped together with Bed-Stuy: But, then again, whoever said hipsters were happy...

Paul Kennedy famously argued that imperial overstretch -- that is devoting too much money and resources to military uses -- plays a central role in the decline of great powers, including the United States. But it looks like America's growing obesity epidemic is reducing the pool of capable recruits, according to this story in The Washington Post (via Dana Goldstein).

About 75 percent of the country's 17- to 24-year-olds are ineligible for military service, largely because they are poorly educated, overweight and have physical ailments that make them unfit for the armed forces, according to a report to be issued Thursday.

Other factors, such as drug use, criminal records and mental problems, contribute to what military leaders say is a major problem that threatens the country's ability to defend itself at a time when the all-volunteer force is already strained fighting two wars.

Money quote:

When you get kids who can't do push-ups, pull-ups or run, this is a fundamental problem not just for the military but for the country," said Curtis Gilroy, the Pentagon's director of accessions policy. Many kids are not "taking physical education in school; they're more interested in sedentary activities such as the computer or television. And we have a fast-food mentality in this country."

Childhood obesity varies considerably across the fifty states and reflects some straightforward economic and demographic patterns, according to a basic correlation analysis by my colleague Charlotta Mellander. Childhood obesity, not surprisingly, reflects adult obesity (with a correlation of .54). It is also more prevalent in states with large working class populations (.4). It is less likely in states with higher income levels (-.32), greater concentrations of the creative class (-.37), and especially those with higher levels of adults with college degrees (-.64).

Photo Credit: Flickr User Seattle Municipal Archives

Andy Warhol’s famous 1968 quote, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,” has not yet come true, but the spirit of it is manifested in the world of cyberspace. At least everyone has the opportunity and the platform to become world-famous.

The United Breaks Guitars phenomenon is well-documented. The main story is that  a clever video with outstanding production value even though it was created on a shoestring describes how a checked guitar belonging to Dave Carroll was broken by baggage handlers. The video has been viewed almost six million times and the Sons of Maxwell have been elevated from a talented but relatively unknown band into a much bigger deal. The song itself reached #1 on the Country and Western charts in the U.K., iTunes sales skyrocketed and, yes, the guitar situation was finally resolved.

But, you probably already knew about the Taylor Guitar if you spend a lot of time online. The oeuvre of jrdmovimkr, an artist that makes fantastic stop-motion videos may have slipped your attention. His medium? Lego. Have a look at his work in this video – a shot-by-shot tribute to “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al Yankovic.  jrdmovimkr’s work has been viewed more than 3.4 million times.

Success on YouTube for witty self-created videos isn’t political or dependent on how rich, connected, or good-looking the author is – it is a complete meritocracy. If your work is clever and entertaining, it will gain acclaim and you will be famous, at least in the online world, and probably for more than 15 minutes.

You can ask the creators of the Potter Puppet Pals. Their most popular video has been viewed more than 70 million times. Seventy million people, by the way, would be enough to be the 15th most-populous country in the world.

Last week, the Pew Research Center recently released its report on marriage in America. Based on data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey for 2008, it provides a wealth of data on marriage and divorce across the 50 states. Check out the map here. Catherine Rampell provides a nice summary over at Economix.

The thing that jumped out at me was the "Larry King" statistic - the number of people who have been married three or more times.

About one-in-twenty Americans who ever have been married said they had been married three or more times. That comes to 4 million men and 4.5 million women.

States varied a lot on this. Arkansas had the highest percentage of "serial marrieds," 10 percent. This was five times more than New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts with just two percent. The study found that multiple marriages were less likely in states with high concentrations of college-educated people, and more likely in states with lower incomes and smaller college-educated populations.

Over the weekend, I enlisted my number-crunching colleague Charlotta Mellander to look at what other factors might be related to such serial marriage. We looked at unemployment, the class composition of the workforce, immigration, gay population, religion, and levels of psychological well-being. Our analysis points to associations and not causal relationships. It shows that a relationship exists, but not that one causes the other.

Class: Serial marriage was less likely in states with high creative class concentrations (a correlation coefficient of -.59). Conversely, it was was much more likely in working class states (.63). The effect of class was about the same as for income (-.58) and human capital (-.65). When we controlled for income, the association between class and marriage remained significant (-.33 for the creative class and .39 for the working class). Class appears to have a relationship to multiple marriage which is distinct from income.

Immigrants, Gays, and Bohemians: Multiple marriage was significantly less likely in states with high immigrant concentrations (-.38), though the association was less than for class. Bohemians: Multiple marriage was also less likely in states with high bohemian concentrations (-.49). So much for the libertine bohemian lifestyle - at least when it comes to multiple marriage that is. There was no correlation between multiple marriage and the share of the gay population.

Religion: The Pew study did not a strong correlation between religion -  measured as the percentage of people who said religion was “very important” in their lives - and marriage or divorce patterns. Our association suggests at least a moderate one. Religion was positively associated with multiple marriage (.43). Multiple marriage was more likely in more religious states

Well-Being: Multiple marriage was less likely in states with high levels of psychological well-being (-.37).

When I went grocery shopping last week, "sunflowers" were on my list, but with details. I was looking for non-variegated yellow petals and black centers (my wife has a much better artistic sense than I do, so I sometimes get these kinds of instructions). When I got there nothing exactly matched the description so I whipped out my iPhone, took a picture of the sunflowers they had, emailed it home, and called my wife. She said those were fine so I picked them up and, feeling very pleased with myself for my new-media savvy, turned around to find that someone had walked off with the cart that had my shopping list in it. While I was focused on the e-world, the real world had gone ahead without me.

This reminded me of a recent cab ride. We were at the airport and got in a taxi. I told the driver the address and what route to take - a well-known shortcut I had learned years ago when I drove a cab. He was flustered and angry because he didn't know where I was talking about going - he usually just entered an address into his onboard computer, which gave him a route with instructions. He didn't actually know where he was. I realized that this isn't unusual, many cabbies don't learn their city anymore because they don't have to. Another disconnect from reality.

As with Wendy's recent post about Blackberries in meetings, it looks like the ubiquitous electronic virtual reality is disconnecting us from the world we live in. From people walking down the street listening to earphones, to drivers talking on cell phones, more and more we're not in touch with what's happening right around us. We're dependent on Google or Wikipedia for information, or GPS for directions, or e-mail and texting for communicating with people in the same building.

What does this mean for our ability to live and work in the real world? Are we losing the ability to find our way and work out solutions on our own? Are computers making us stupid?

Earlier this week Catherine Rampell posted this map over at Economix. It shows the percentages of workers who drove to work alone by state and is based on U.S. Census data.

D.C. has the lowest rate - a fact which was not lost on D.C. blogging circles. NY did well too.  The worst performers were Alabama, Tennessee, and Ohio, where about eight in 10 workers drive alone -  more than double that of D.C.

With the help of my colleague Charlotta Mellander, we took a quick look at some factors that might be associated with this geographic pattern. It's not an exhaustive list: We examined some key economic factors like income and economic output, human capital and the creative class, and psychological ones like happiness, stress, and personality. We removed D.C. from the analysis because it was such an extreme outlier. We did not develop or run any serious multivariate analysis - just simple correlations, or associations, between variables.

Still the findings point to some reasonably clear patterns.

Income and Economic Output: The richer the state, the less likely people were to drive alone. Driving alone was negatively correlated with state income levels (-.46) and output per capita (-.41).

Class and Human Capital: States with higher percentages of college graduates (-.47) and the creative class (-.43) were less likely to have people driving alone. Driving alone was much more likely in states with large working class concentrations (.62).

Professional and Creative Jobs: Driving alone was less likely in states with high concentrations of virtually every type of professional, knowledge-based and creative jobs. But it was least likely in states with large concentrations of artists, designers, and entertainers (-.63), architects and engineers (-.61), scientists (-.56 ), and lawyers (-.55).

Diversity - Immigrants and Gays: Driving alone was less likely in states with high concentrations of immigrants (-.51) and gays (-.41).

Happiness: Happiness research tells us that commuting is one of life's least pleasurable activities.  Driving along was negatively associated with state levels of happiness and well-being (-.46) and positively associated with states with higher levels of stress (.29).

Personality: Psychologists identify five main personality types. Driving alone was more likely in states with high levels of three of them: extroverts (.29), conscientiousness (.36), and agreeableness (.44). Interestingly, there was no association between driving alone and the two other types - neurotic and openness to experience, which some might say makes it harder to explain New York.