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Knowledge workers are important to the future economic growth of metropolitan regions as key ingredients in the knowledge economy. Firms seeking human capital locate to regions rich in Creative Class talent; cities with stronger talent, either measured by education or Creative Class worker tend to be winners in the technology economy (Florida 2005). Florida argues that creatives are attracted to regions that display a measure of tolerance, which provides a type of amenity where creatives can rub shoulders with diversity. He calls these the country clubs of today’s creatives, indicating that knowledge spillovers occur in places where creativity spills out on the street.

Yet, regions with large populations of diversity tend to be segregated, both residentially and commercially. Do creatives want to live with diversity in the hip cool spaces of the urban city? Florida argues that they do despite criticisms from others that knowledge workers prefer to live in the suburbs . I hypothesize that knowledge workers live in the suburbs, while the groups that indicate tolerance (same-sex partnered households, foreign-born and bohemians) concentrate mostly in the city. I also argue that what makes a region tolerant is a process of group concentration and the resulting spatially located enclaves that foster social movements. These enclaves draw diverse populations, which signal to creatives that the area is tolerant.

Florida’s first argument that his creative cities are more tolerant appears to be correct, given the literature on tolerance in political science and sociology. Cities with more people from different backgrounds tend to produce residents who score higher on tolerance measures. Cities that score increasingly higher on the creativity index also attract a broader array of residents. While one could argue that gays enter the analysis and thus affect the creativity rankings, foreign-born immigrants do not enter in the creativity index. In cities with large numbers of gays, there are also large numbers of foreign-born immigrants. The first hypothesis that tolerance is the byproduct of larger diverse subgroup populations at the regional level is supported. Cities with large numbers of gays, foreign-born immigrants and bohemians also had larger numbers of creatives. Florida’s argument that creatives gravitate to regions where there is more diversity is also supported. Creatives collocate to regions with larger diverse subgroup populations.

However, Creative Class members do not necessarily live with diversity. As the percent concentrated and the spatial measures indicate, creatives are in general suburbanites while diversity tends to be located in the central city. Moreover, foreign-born immigrants, gays and bohemians tend to concentrate in enclaves that are increasingly isolated from creatives as the populations of all groups increase. This seems to support the notion that Bell and Binnie (2004) propose. Creatives consume diverse space, claiming cosmopolitanism, but go home to the burbs after a night out on the town. While some creatives live in diverse neighborhoods, the percentage is very low (less than 13%). This low percentage could actually be the result of a number of Creative Class workers who are also in same-sex or foreign-born immigrant households.

Across all metropolitan areas, the GINI coefficient stays about the same. This means that every metropolitan area experiences unevenness of diversity and creatives. However, the spatiality of the GINI increases as the population of each group increases, which points to higher and higher concentrations of diversity in pockets. Remember that the standardized GINI can fluctuate between 1 and –1. Values closer to –1 indicate that a region has a larger number of clusters. In region 1, the 500 gays may live in the gay village which is part of an area where foreign-born immigrants and bohemians live. Many cities contain diverse areas where multiple groups tend to live in neighboring tracts. While this would be spatial and uneven, it would result in a low standardized spatial GINI (0 to -.4). However, in region 2, the gay village is separate from the other enclaves of foreign-born immigrants and bohemians, as is the case with cities like New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. This would result in a higher negative spatial GINI (-.5 to –1), as there are multiple pockets spread through out the region of these different groups which causes a larger number of neighbors to switch rankings in the computation of the spatial GINI.

It also indicates more probable contact (exposure) even with higher isolation. Many different pockets or enclaves present multiple places for creatives to consume spaces of difference, giving a visual perception of the region as tolerant.

As an example Table 12 shows the results for the metropolitan region of Kansas City, KS-MO. Like many cities, Kansas City has a large number of spread out suburbs. About 74% of the Creative Class call the outer regions of Kansas City home versus only about 26% who live in the urban core. In terms of concentration, the Creative Class only meets the weakest level requirement or a location quotient of 1.

However, increasing the location quotient level from 1 to 3 and then 5, reduces the number of Creative Class concentrated to nothing. This shows that Florida’s Creative Class lives mostly in the suburbs, and spread out. Like the Creative Class, same-sex partnered households (SSHH), foreign-born immigrants (FBI) and bohemians (BOHO) tend to live in the suburbs, and are slightly more likely to concentrate when they do. Yet, these populations exhibit very high concentration in the urban core of Kansas City at the location quotient level of five. A high level of concentration in Kansas City central cities suggests spatial pockets of diversity. This is shown by the standardized spatial GINI for Kansas City as a -.456. Values from 0 to -1 indicate increasingly concentrated pockets of diversity throughout the Kansas City region, but mostly in the urban core.