by Samantha Teter
I was greatly impressed and empowered by the presentation of Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class" at IPFW on March 18. But the main question left in my mind was, "Why did he choose Fort Wayne as a creative class economy?" Did Fort Wayne really have the diversity, creative environment and tolerance that is necessary to foster a creative class economy?
At first, my thought was "no." But then our group roundtable discussions started. And what my group realized is that we do have the diversity and the creative environment to succeed, but we're not embracing it. We have the seeds but haven't given them the opportunity to blossom. Our city is diverse in its ethnicity, gender, age, orientation. But we tend to live in our comfortable, segregated colonies and do not like to cross those boundaries as often as we should.
Look at our arts community. We have a variety of excellent community theatres, performance venues, vocal and instrumental organizations, performing musicians, artists, dancers, poets, etc. I'm sure many of us have been to the Children's Zoo, but what about the Museum of Art, the History Center, the Diehm Museum of Natural History, African-American Historical Museum?
We have many initiatives going on right now to develop Fort Wayne and the community. But the changes cannot occur unless the community as a whole participates. What I learned most from last night's discussion is this: We need to change our attitudes about our city. Myself included. There are things going on every day, every night, every weekend in Fort Wayne. People need to search these events out, try something new, embrace the cultural and creative resources our city has. Be proud of what we have to offer.
Yes, we're losing big business opportunities. Yes, our young people are leaving after college to find jobs in bigger, more exciting cities. Yes, our economy is slow. But we, as a community, can change that. We can't expect the city/county governments to do all the work for us. I challenge each of you to find something new and different to do this weekend. Leave your comfort zone. Go see a play, head down to a nightclub for some live music, visit the museums. Until the community itself embraces our wonderful creative resources, we cannot expect potential Fort Wayne citizens or businesses to want to do the same.
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Samantha Teter is the Director of Marketing and Auditorium Events for Scottish Rite Center and a performer in local community theatre.
A Follow Up:
A partnership of sponsors and organizations worked together for many months to plan Richard Florida's visit to Fort Wayne. He didn't 'choose' Fort Wayne, as some might have supposed, so much as was invited to bring his national tour our way.
Fort Wayne doesn't score very high on some of the rankings for medium sized cities in his book and website. This is of great concern to some of the local government, business, and community leaders as well as 'creatives' in Fort Wayne (for many reasons including quality-of-life, not just economic). Many arranged for his visit to present his ideas here.
During his visit, he and his manager were very excited by the warm reception and diverse participants at the event (business and bohemian, for example). They said they don't always see that in other cities. They said Fort Wayne has a tremendous opportunity to grow in the ways that many here want to.
Posted by: Admin at March 21, 2003 09:19 AMI also want to add that I realize the creative community includes more than just the arts community, but that is what is closest to my heart and what I focused on in my editorial. There are many other creative categories in Fort Wayne.
Posted by: Samantha Teter at March 21, 2003 10:26 AMIn my opinion the core message that Richard Florida delivered was "create an environment where people are listened to and understood, then they will come". The communities that are open, friendly and interested in their nieghbor's ideas and aspirations are the places that people will want to live and thrive. Creativity comes in many forms. To create, in some form, is a basic human need. Creating friendly environments is something that should be done at every meeting and event. While we have our share of dolts in Fort Wayne, the vast majority is oriented towards hospitality. The LARGEST CONVENTION EVER in the history of our town is coming back in 2005. They gushed about our welcoming atmosphere that was "created" last year. They spoke about our 110% team effort to make their event the "best ever".
If our leaders and most empowered take up this charge of overtly demonstrating an open and friendly attitude in their daily activity, making it the standard, then this open and friendly demeanor will become contagiuos and our community spirit will begin to soar.
Hoosier Hospitality is a slogan in our state. In my opinion, when people visit Fort Wayne or come here to live, they should be impressed by what a friendly and helpful place it is. We should own this slogan. It doesn't take a mountain or an ocean, it just takes people deciding to behave in a friendly, engaging manner.
Posted by: Bill Brown at March 21, 2003 10:31 AM