Is the Creative Class Changing the Way We Vote?

A New York Times Magazine article by William Galston and Pietro S. Nivola makes the claim that as a country we are more divided than we have ever been: but divided by geography and therefore politics. In other words, we are more likely to live near people who are like ourselves and vote like ourselves.

A quote: “Meanwhile, young people have deserted rural and older manufacturing areas for cities like Austin and Portland. Places with higher densities of college graduates attract even more, so that the gap between such communities and less-educated areas widens further. Zones of high education, in turn, produce more innovation and enjoy higher incomes, generating communities dominated by upper-middle-class tastes. Lower-educated regions, by contrast, tend to be more family-oriented and more faithful to traditional authority.”

Read the whole article here.

Next Brown Bag: Reinvorating the Great Lakes with GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange) to be May 16

Reinvigorating the Great Lakes with GLUE

Friday, May 16, 12 noon

KCCI/APEX/The Northland Works/Minnesota Power Economic Development Brown Bag

Minnesota Power Building, Room 140,

30 West Superior Street, Duluth.

Who Can Come? Everyone is welcome and it’s FREE!

How? Bring your own lunch and enjoy the conversation.

Speakers:

Jennifer Hawkins, Senior Economic Development Analyst, Minnesota Power.

John Bennett, Regional Extension Educator, University of Minnesota Extension

GLUE, which stands for the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, is an organization formed in late 2007. Its mission is to serve as a forum for people to exchange stories, ideas, and best practices between otherwise isolated Great Lakes cities. The GLUE coalition is currently made up of over 20 Great Lakes cities and is working to promote the power, aid in the transformation, and address the shared challenges of similarly-storied older industrial cities. Come hear more about this initiative and how you can be a part of it from one of the young professionals spearheading Duluth’s involvement.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:

Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website: http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com

Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Federal government worried about Boomer Retirements

It’s not just this region, but the entire country is starting to get worried about what’s going to happen over the next few years. Fortunately, Northeast Minnesota and Northwest Wisconsin have been working for years on strategies to handle the boomer retirements.

Take a look at this Washington Post story.

Measuring How We’re Doing As A Community: Twin Cities Compass

How well is a community doing? There are thousands of statistics to pick and choose from. An exciting new project in Minnesota, the Compass Project, is underway in the Twin Cities and working on expanding outward to the rest of Minnesota.

Take a look at their extensive website here.

In the Twin Cities, they have the backing of a long list of foundations and key organizations ranging from the Bush Foundation to the Wilder Foundation. As part of Duluth Mayor Don Ness’s frist 100 days in office speech, he said he’d like to see the project extended to Duluth. The idea is to make sure there’s a good “dashboard” of indicators across many sectors to give everyone in town a good (and simple) way of understanding how the community is doing. Using many indicators is a useful way of approaching an understanding of community. Many times, leaders look at simple economic indicators that might not tell you that while the economy as a whole is doing well, those at the bottom are really struggling.

Itasca Economic Development does a nice job of using a variety of indicators to show how their community is doing. Their reports are available here.

Next Downtown Brown Bag May 6: The Bottom Line of Diversity

“The Bottom Line of Diversity”

Tuesday, May 6, 12 noon

KCCI/APEX/The Northland Works/Minnesota Power Economic Development Brown Bag

Minnesota Power Building, Room 140,
30 West Superior Street, Duluth.

Who Can Come? Everyone is welcome and it’s FREE!
How? Bring your own lunch and enjoy the conversation.

Don’t look now, but the Twin Ports population is becoming more diverse every day. Major corporations have found that embracing diversity in the workplace is not just the right thing to do, it’s essential for long-term economic growth. Is your business ready for the future?

Speakers: Greg Grell, Tonya Roth, and Jen Bertsch from the Mix It Up Team of the Knight Creative Communities Initiative Duluth Superior.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:
Friday, May 16, Topic: GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange)
Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website: http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com

Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

or on the Knight Foundation’s website.

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange) Brown Bag to be May 16

Friday, May 16, 12 noon. (Note New Date)

KCCI/APEX/The Northland Works/Minnesota Power Economic Development Brown Bag

“Reinvigorating the Great Lakes with GLUE”

Minnesota Power Building, Room 140,

30 West Superior Street, Duluth.

Who Can Come? Everyone is welcome and it’s FREE!

How? Bring your own lunch and enjoy the conversation.

GLUE, which stands for the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, is an organization formed in late 2007. Its mission is to serve as a forum for people to exchange stories, ideas, and best practices between otherwise isolated Great Lakes cities. The GLUE coalition is currently made up of over 20 Great Lakes cities and is working to promote the power, aid in the transformation, and address the shared challenges of similarly-storied older industrial cities. Come hear more about this initiative and how you can be a part of it from one of the young
professionals spearheading Duluth’s involvement.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about GLUE, click here for their website.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:

Tuesday, May 6

Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website:
http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com
Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

or on the Knight Foundation’s website.

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Bicycling Sharing Program Starts in DC

The New York Times today has an article about a new bicycle sharing program in Washington DC.

The program starts with 10 locations and lets users pick up and drop off bikes at their convenience. A little like the Zipcar programs that have started.

Exciting May for KCCI Projects

May is going to be an exciting month to show off all of the work that’s been done on the Twin Ports KCCI project and the partners that have worked with our teams. Some of the highlights:

The Mix-It-Up Group has started their Hodge Podge Supper Club dinners to bring people together in the Twin Ports are create more bridging social capital. Read more at their website.

The Pathways group is working on finalizing and publicizing their Request for Proposals for artist-designed bike racks for the Twin Ports. Be on the lookout for the announcement soon.

The Art Works group is getting all of their new working groups together this month to review the projects that were created out of the Art Works Summit to see what direction the community has decided to go. Their website is here.

Sustainable Twin Ports will also start reviewing applications for their Early Adopters project. For more, see their website here.

The downtown economic development brown bag will have two sessions:

Tuesday, May 6, 12 noon. Subject: Hodge Podge Supper Club

Friday, May 16, 12 noon. Subject: GLUE: the Great Lakes Urban Exchange.

For more information, come back to this website soon.

KCCI Duluth Superior also expects to release an end of the First Year report by the end of May. We’ll post it here as well as on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation website.

Update on Duluth Brown Bag Lunches

Our next Duluth Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag will be Tuesday, May 6 at 12 noon.

The subject will be the work of the Mix-It-Up Team of the KCCI Duluth Superior project and will cover their Hodge Podge Supper Club work. For more information on the Hodge Podge Supper Club project, please see their website:

Hodge Podge Supper Club

The Brown Bag scheduled for Friday, May 2 about GLUE, the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, has been rescheduled for Friday, May 16.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:

Friday, May 16

Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website:
http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com

Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

or on the Knight Foundation’s website.

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

News Tribune has an update on KCCI Duluth Superior

The Duluth News Tribune ran a story about being a year into the KCCI project on Sunday, generally praising the work and noting that real change will happen over a longer period of time.

“Positive Change Is on the Way” is here.

Community leaders had some significant praise for the project in their comments. Among them:

“I think the Art Works Conference was a positive step in encouraging more cultural opportunities for our community,” said Duluth Mayor Don Ness, who gave opening remarks at the event, along with Superior Mayor Dave Ross.

Ross said the conference was the most interesting event he has attended this year.

“They put together businesspeople, there were investors, there were a lot of different people. It wasn’t your one-sided, narrowly defined event. It was very diverse,” he said.

Read the full story for more.