RSM 2115: Creative Regional Economies  

Dr. Kevin Stolarick
kevin.stolarick@rotman.utoronto.ca

Dr. Richard Florida
florida@rotman.utoronto.ca

RSM 2115

Creative Regional Strategies

Spring 2012

COURSE MEETINGS

Mondays: 4:15 - 6:15 PM

Martin Prosperity Institute
MaRS Centre, Suite 420
101 College Street 

OFFICE HOURS

To schedule a meeting with Kevin Stolarick, contact Kate Johnson.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

There are key skills you need to develop if you are going to work effectively as an economic developer, community developer, arts and culture developer or as a manager or consultant to others in these roles.  The key trait of a good developer or consultant is the ability to use real information culled from a variety of sources to develop strategy and help clients, decision makers, and policy leaders reach informed decisions.  This course aims to develop those skills in a real world way.

Today, regional development is undergoing a revolution.  It used to be thought that for regions and nations to grow all that was required was to influence business location decisions.  Communities that attracted businesses grew and those that did not declined.  The state of the art was to try and lure companies with tax or other business incentives.  Those days are over.  Today we know that in order to grow, communities and regions need to do much more. 

A survey of college graduates found that two in three of them identified location as more important than the availability of a job when selecting a place to live. As noted in the CEOs for Cities report, “The Young and the Restless in a Knowledge Economy” (page 50), “[T]oday’s young adults are much more likely to choose to live in close-in urban neighborhoods than were young adults 10 or 20 years ago. Today’s 25 to 34 year-olds are about one-third more likely to live in neighborhoods within 3 miles of a region’s downtown than are other Americans.” While traditional economic development and growth strategies have been driven by a “demand-side” strategy – attract jobs to get the people - today’s Creative Economy requires a “supply-side” strategy.  As Carley Fiorina, the former CEO of HP, told the nation’s governors, “Keep your tax incentives and highway interchanges; we will go where the highly skilled people are.”  This creates a tremendous opportunity for any region.  If a region can capitalize on the new “supply-side” thinking, that region will grow and prosper.

Understanding regional growth requires focusing on the Four Ts of regional economic development – Technology, Talent, Tolerance, and Territory Assets.  Each is a necessary but by itself insufficient condition for generating economic growth in today’s knowledge-driven Creative Economy.  To attract creative people, generate innovation and stimulate economic growth, a place must offer substantial but balanced performance across all four.  The interaction among these four is as important as each of the Four T’s individually.  As an increasing number of well-educated, creative workers make location decisions based on more than just an employment opportunity, other factors are playing a more significant role in the growth of regions.

This course will provide the student with a background in traditional economic development thinking and will provide both theory and practice in understanding economic development in today’s “supply-side” Creative Economy.  The course will take shape around a combination of lecture, discussion, group exercises, simulations, and lab sessions.  The course is structured around technology (including traditional economic development) issues, the importance of regional talent, the role of tolerance and diversity, and authentic regional amenities and territory assets.  Students will demonstrate understanding and proficiency of the topics presented by completing an in-depth analysis and developing recommendations for a selected community.

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