A jeweler works at an outdoor art fair in Evanston. Photo: Jaysin Trevino from Evanston, IL, US / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
An analysis of census data by The Atlantic Cities, published in early February 2013, placed Evanston among the top ten locations in the Chicago area for concentration of what urbanist Richard Florida has called the creative class. The other spots on the list included several Chicago neighborhoods plus Oak Park, Glencoe and Burr Ridge, according to a summary in Evanston Patch.
The Atlantic Cities worked at the level of census tracts, small statistical areas that usually hold a few thousand people, and counted residents by occupation. Its definition of the creative class was broad: people working in science and technology, business and management, the arts, culture, media and entertainment, law, and health care. That is a wide net, and it helps explain why university towns and affluent suburbs tend to score high.
What the measure captures
The category lumps together a physician, a software engineer, a lawyer and a graphic designer. It says more about the kinds of jobs residents hold than about how many artists live on a given block. Still, the result fits a city that is home to Northwestern University, several hospitals and a steady flow of commuters to downtown Chicago.
Patch noted that American Community Survey figures showed roughly 36 percent of Evanston workers in education, health care or social assistance, and nearly 17 percent in professional, scientific, management or administrative jobs. Those numbers describe the city’s workforce as a whole, not the ranking itself.
Why planners pay attention
Rankings like this one feed a long-running argument among economic developers: whether cities should chase employers first or the educated workers those employers want to hire. Florida’s work popularized the second view, and officials across the region have cited it when promoting transit access, walkable downtowns and arts venues. Evanston has all three in a compact area, with CTA, Metra and Pace service, a dense downtown and several theater companies.
The ranking is a snapshot built on census estimates, and tract boundaries are drawn for statistical convenience, not neighborhood identity. The exact placement deserves caution. The broader point is that Evanston showed up near the top of a large metro area.
Source: Evanston Patch’s report on The Atlantic Cities analysis.
Thomas Brennan covers property taxes, real estate, transit and the local economy for The Evanston Edge.
