(no subject)

[danaeris]

There have been a number of must read posts today.

Courtesy of brynndragon
First, a long article about a researcher who was trying to explain why Pittsburgh is turning out large numbers of techies, but not keeping them. He tried to correlate them with all sorts of things, and it wasn't until he tried correlating with gay populations that he hit the jackpot.
E-Village People
It's interesting, but it's also pretty funny in a number of places.

Also from brynndragon, a particularly funny Onion article:
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4121&n=1

And, from pyat, we have the disturbing truth about evolution, via the new Creation Science museum: Animatronic Dinosaurs which tell you the Truth

Finally, since I've now made fun of stupid people and hard-line creationists (um, is there actually a difference? Who knows...), I will also make fun of my own establishment: The media. And the US military while I'm at it.
A high school student achieves the modern pinnacle of investigative journalism in an attempt to discover just how far army recruiters will go in the US to get "one more."

Lots of interesting and amusing reading. Have at!

Comments

the creative class

[cos]

[copy of the comment I posted in Brynn's LJ]

There was a lot of publicity about this when Richard Florida's first book about the Creative Class first came out, which I think was about three or four years ago. He proposed that a city's gay population be seen as its "canaries". If more of them are moving to a city, it's a sign that the city is doing the right kinds of things to be vibrant; when they're leaving, it's a sign the city is not doing the right things, and faces economic stagnation or decline.

Creative Class / Richard Florida central on the web is at creativeclass.org

[two things I noticed now, that I didn't when I commented in her LJ]

1. That piece is, in fact, from 2002.

2. It's on garreau.com, The Garreau Group. That's Joel Garrow, author of my two favorite books on the structure of today's America:

• The Nine Nations of North America - written in 1980, divides North America into nine cultural-economic nations which do not follow state or national boundaries, and describes what they're like and where their borders are. (The nations are New England, Quebec, the Foundry, the Breadbasket, Dixie, the Islands, the Empty Quarter, Mexamerica, and Ecotopia. Quebec is all in Canada, Dixie is all in the US, the other seven all cross national boundaries)
  
• Edge City - what drives development, sprawl, and the rules that govern how the fastest growing areas in the US form and built. Edge Cities are the interaction of office parks, malls, and residential subdivisions, that spring up at the intersections of ring roads (like route 128) and radial spokes (like 93, 2, 3, 9, and the pike) - they're where most people in America work.

And, thanks to you two posting this link, I now see that Garreau has a new book, which I obviously need to buy soon.