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Want your city to prosper? Well you should know the economic price of intolerance
. Recent research conducted in the United States by Richard Florida, Heinz Professor of Regional Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon University, and Gary Gates, an Urban Institute demographer demonstrates that tolerance of lesbians and gay men, immigrants and other minorities is much more fundamental to sustained economic growth than any amount of tax cuts.
...the big new-ideas and cutting-edge industries that lead to sustained prosperity are more likely to exist where gay people feel welcome. Most centers of tech-based business growth also have the highest concentrations of gay couples. Conversely, major areas with relatively few gay couples tend to be slow- or no-growth places. Pittsburgh and Buffalo, which have low percentages of gay couples, were two of only three major regions to lose population from 1990 to 2000.
Innovation and overall regional economic vitality also are closely associated with the presence of gays and other indicators of tolerance and diversity, such as the percentage of immigrants and the level of racial and ethnic integration.
Why? Creative, innovative and entrepreneurial activities tend to flourish in the same kinds of places that attract gays and others outside the norm. To put it bluntly, a place where it's OK for men to walk down the street holding hands will probably also be a place where Indian engineers, tattooed software geeks and foreign-born entrepreneurs feel at home. When people from varied backgrounds, places and attitudes can collide, economic home runs are likely.
The researchers also noticed a significant number of heterosexual people who looked for a visible gay community as a sign that a city was a vibrant and interesting place to live. Gay-tolerant societies prosper economically - USA Today, 30th April 2003.
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at 09:49. Last modified on September 28 2006 at 23:43.
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