Society
High-Tech Thrives Where Gays Live
An atmosphere of social tolerance attracts gays--and high-tech
growth.
By Hope Cristol
conomist Richard Florida was studying the locations of high-tech industries and
talented people. Demographer Gary Gates was studying the location of gay populations. They
were strangers to each other until a mutual colleague suggested they compare notes--notes
so strongly correlated that a new socioeconomic theory emerged:
Gay population is a strong predictor of both high-tech industry
concentration and high-tech growth in regions.
Gates created the Gay Index, the first statistical map of where gay
people live, based on 1990 U.S. Census data of same-sex couples identified as
"unmarried partners." (The Census did not ask people to identify their sexual
orientation until 2000; the Index has been updated to include this data.) Comparing the
Gay Index with the Milken Institute's high-tech rankings of 49 large regions, Gates and
Florida discovered that 12 of the top 20 regions with the highest gay populations are
among the top 20 high-tech regions in the United States.
Florida, a professor of regional economic development at Carnegie Mellon
University in Pittsburgh, explains the correlation in his new book, The Rise of the
Creative Class.
Historically the object of considerable discrimination, gays have had
difficulty integrating into mainstream U.S. society. Therefore, a city that welcomes the
gay community must also welcome a great diversity of people, from immigrants to
avant-garde types. "For these reasons, openness to the gay community is a good
indicator of the low entry barriers to human capital that are so important to spurring
creativity and generating high-tech growth," Florida writes.
The strong correlation between high-tech sectors and gay population can
be seen as part of a broader correlation between creative centers and gay population. Ten
of the top 20 Gay Index regions were among the top 20 centers for "Creative
Class," comprising some 38 million Americans "whose economic function is to
create new ideas, new technology and/or new creative content," according to Florida.
The Creative Class covers a broad occupational spectrum, including scientists, engineers,
artists and entertainers, writers, lawyers, and health-care professionals.
Gates and Florida's statistical correlations do not suggest that gays
dominate the high-tech industry, or that gays are necessarily society's most-creative,
most-innovative members. Rather, the predictive value of Gates's Gay Index is its
reliability as an indicator of regions that are open and tolerant. And an environment of
openness and tolerance toward all types of diversity is particularly important to the
Creative Class in general and high-tech workers in particular.
"Many grew up being stereotyped as nerds; some have extreme habits
and dress. All want places where they can fit in and live as they please without raising
eyebrows," Florida writes. He concludes his argument with a quote from Austin
American-Statesman reporter Bill Bishop: "Where gay households abound, geeks
follow."
Source: The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida. Basic Books,
www.basicbooks.com. 2002. 404 pages. $27.50. (Order online from www.wfs.org/specials.htm.)
