Who's Your City?
By Richard Florida
In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman outlined how globalization is providing growth opportunities throughout the developing world. But in Who's Your City by Richard Florida, the world is becoming both flatter and spikier at the same time. While routine manufacturing and service work is
increasingly globalized, high end creative work is increasingly focused in a handful of global mega-cities.
One of the major trends in the global age is the creation of the mega-city, the merging of cities into regional economies. Canada's economy is driven by two mega-regions: Buffalo - Toronto - Montreal, and Cascadia (of which Vancouver forms a part). In these regions is concentrated the majority of the nation's leading universities, high powered companies, educated workforces, research and development facilities and financial institutions.
These two mega-regions are two of roughly forty around the world, where a major portion of economic growth is taking place. Geographic concentration appears increasingly important in an age of fierce international competition. Innovation is feedstock of economic growth and regions that
attract a critical mass of high-end talent, have a major advantage in the world's global economy.
Richard Florida argues that the global economy is increasingly characterized by four kinds of places: 1) highly innovative mega-cities, 2) global manufacturing and service centres, 3) global slums, and 4) rural areas with limited connection to the global economy.
On one hand, global mega-cities are increasingly interconnected by a global creative class of roughly 150 million people, who are internationally mobile and form their own global culture. People in places such as Hong Kong, London and New York have more in common with each other, than with other people in their own countries. (The recent elections in the United States clearly illustrate the growing gulf between the east and west coast cities, and the mid-west, where Americans in those regions have little in common in terms of world view. Another consequence of globalization is increased economic inequality, both between geographic areas and within them.)
On a more positive note, Richard Florida states that we have an unparalleled opportunity to choose where we live. Studies indicate that the value of seeing friends and relatives is often underrated. Moving for reasons of work is less important for people than for reasons of housing or family. The
author suggests that we choose places that match our personalities and life stages. He recommends that we get our priorities right, create a short-list of places to live, and explore the match between our personal needs and place.
Who's Your City? is descriptive of what is happening in the global economy yet highlights the choices we all possess in regard to where we want to live. Find this book in the adult non-fiction section of the Prince George Public Library.
- Reviewed by John Shepherd, former trustee for the Prince George Public
Library Board
Tales From Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major
By John Feinstein
Every fall, more than a thousand veterans and talented wannabes sweat through three stages of hell known as "Q School", the PGA Tour Qualifying tournament. They are vying for only thirty slots on the PGA tour that will make them possible stars, maybe millionaires, or just plain "earners". All
others are relegated to the Nationwide tour or lesser events, or must go through another Q School in another year. There is no other professional sport that demands such a gauntlet of psychological punishment before you are allowed the privilege of playing.
Q School is an all or nothing ritual that strikes fear into these most mortal men playing a game that often depends on the luck of the draw. John Feinstein's book is filled with heart-rending stories of missed dreams, shattered emotions, strange mistakes, and assorted demons. From the discovery of conditions requiring surgery, to a swollen cornea impacting vision, to signing a scorecard containing a circled bogey, or a handicapped golfer suing the PGA, there are as many stories as strokes played, as many sorry turns as the flight of a golf ball, as many mistakes as possibly
human. This tournament above all others is the most inhumane, yet it is a ouchingly human story of those undergoing the gauntlet to glimpse the limelight of a possible PGA career.
John Feinstein personally tells the story of the great players who compete for these coveted positions and his voice betrays the sympathy he feels for these golfers who are among the top 500 in the world. The problem is that the PGA only allows two and a half dozen to join each year, so no matter how great a golfer is, the pressures of Q School will reveal whether he is worthy to join the PGA or not.
There are many books written about the greats of golf like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jack Nicklaus, and others. Tales From Q School highlights all the others, the not-so-greats who must undergo this rite of passage. Some survive, others do not. This book is their story.
Tales From Q School is available as an abridged book on CD. The unabridged version can be downloaded as an audiobook from the library website. Play it on your computer, iPod, or mp3 player.
- Reviewed by Allan Wilson, Chief Librarian at the Prince George Public Library
