The 2010 Atlantic Business Summit was the site of some open and frank discussion about the employment and economic outlook for the East Coast. At the centre of those discussions was Kevin Stolarick, Research Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute. His opening keynote address, “The Future Prosperity of Atlantic Canada,” was a wide-ranging and candid conversation. Stolarick tackled trends in North American professional and economic development, and pointed to the ways the Atlantic provinces could capitalize on a pervasive new attitude. At the heart of the matter, Stolarick claimed that “prosperity is about more than increasing growth. It’s about being a better place for your existing as well as your future market.”

The Creative Class and the 3 Ts

Citing his work with urban studies theorist (and head of the Prosperity Institute) Richard Florida, Stolarick began by explaining the “creative class,” and its role in a diversified knowledge economy. Admitting that it was hard to know how to make regions grow when you’re dealing with this type of economy, his team “decided to look at what people were doing, rather than where they were working.”

^{_{Kevin Stolarick - Photo credit: Graham Huber}}

This difference brought light to a recent shift in employment focus: “Twenty years ago, if you met someone at a party, you’d talk about ‘where you worked,’” Stolarick said. “Now, when you meet somebody, you talk about ‘what you do.’” This trend reflects a change towards horizontal career mobility, by “people who are paid to think,” and an importance in “looking at what people are doing, rather than where they are working.”

With this information in mind, the key to successfully growing a region is three essential qualities:

• Technology. This has long been recognized in modern growth strategies, but there’s a catch, said Stolarick: “You have to be ‘industry agnostic.’ We’re not talking about focusing entirely on particular industries,” like biotech or aerospace. Technology is more like an “attitude,” he said, where excellence in technological development should be encouraged across a spectrum of industries.

• Talent. Like technology, this seems obvious, said Stolarick. The key is to think of Talent in a way that values creativity as equally as education. Furthermore, “it’s not just about thinking about Talent as a stock, but understanding that Talent is a flow.”

• Tolerance. Stolarick told the story about Pittsburg, a city where he had lived and worked. Despite having Technology and Talent – particularly through its university system – the city was still losing people. Why was this happening? The problem was that the city misunderstood its Talent, and why people had settled there. “People move. And if people move, that means they’re making decisions about whether they like where they are, and they’re thinking and making decisions about the places they’re going to move to.” Pittsburg, it turned out, wasn’t so good about bridging social backgrounds and bringing diverse people together. It was friendly, but wasn’t so open and accepting to newcomers or to different ways of thinking and doing business. “Because Talent can move, the idea of being inclusive is very important,” he noted. “Places which scored very highly on having ‘creative’ classes were also places which tended to be more open to new experiences. People who are willing to new experiences are also those who are willing to try new things.”

The Fourth T

Creating a place that meets these expectations is a big task, but it’s all necessary in this new economic climate, Stolarick says. “In the era of the big company, if you had the job, people would follow. This was the mantra of economic development for decades. But as soon as you’re talking about the Knowledge Economy, or the Creative Class, the ‘job’ is no longer enough. You still need the job, but it in itself won’t keep people in a place.”

Furthermore, in the projected wake of mass retirements and looming workforce shortages, having jobs on their own simply isn’t going to be enough for the future of the Atlantic region. “Amenities matter,” Stolarick notes. “The things that make a region attractive are hugely important.”

This leads to something Stolarick’s research team has tentatively called “the fourth ‘T’: Territory Assets.” Atlantic Canada will need to “think big” in order to capitalize on its inherent advantages, he notes. This means focusing on areas that are acknowledged, or even hidden, strengths. “If Halifax said, ‘We want to be the urban centre of Canada,’ it would only ever be a second-rate Toronto,” he argued. “But it needs to be a first-rate Halifax. This is where the importance of amenities comes in. It’s about leveraging what you have available to you to make it work.”

Thinking Big

The eastern provinces will need to “think regionally” in order to capitalize on their proximity to each other, and to use each other’s resources to mutual advantage. “You have to go beyond your boundaries. It’s not necessarily about ‘your city’ or ‘your province,’ both of which are very small on the grand scheme of Canada. If you can attract people to the region, all the provinces there are going to win.”

This will require “thinking big,” Stolarick claims. “The idea of ‘thinking big’ and ‘acting big’ is to be able to say things like, ‘Come to Moncton for the surfing.’” But it’s also about selling the region as a region, and taking into consideration the distances that people will drive within that region to take advantage of the available amenities.

When thinking about developing the economic climate, Stolarick gave a metaphor which produced some laughs in the crowd: “Use a shotgun, not a rifle.” What did he mean by this? “It’s not about attracting the one big plant or firm which is going to hire 500 people,” Stolarick said. “It’s about attracting the 100 firms which are all going to hire five people.”

This means another change in mentality: getting away from “a ‘silver bullet’ solution – a convention centre, an airport, a waterfront. And it’s not about chasing smokestacks – whether you can get Bombardier to open up a new plant. These no longer work. You want a diversity of small firms – architecture, engineering, consultancies, services, and so on.” Some might fail, he admitted, but “some will be successful and become 10-person firms.”

Stolarick’s parting advice for the Atlantic region was only half-joking: “You have to be lucky.” As the saying goes, “Chance favours the prepared mind.” This very much applied to the situation in Atlantic Canada. Being lucky is “a question about being smart,” about “knowing when you’ve been lucky,” and being prepared when that situation arises.