What Makes a City Appealing to High-Tech Workers?

WGR writes "The City of Ottawa, Canada is starting to re-write its Official Plan, the "charter" for a city. [A few weeks ago] we had a 5 day Smart Growth Summit that was webcast online with discussion groups and web interactivity. Ottawa is fairly strong in the high-tech sector as it is, with NortelNetworks and JDS-Uniphase having their biggest presence here and had over a $1 billion of venture capital last year. But how do you keep a livable city when you expect to have a 50% population increase in 10 years? One idea came from Dr. Richard Florida from Carnegie-Mellon University. He said that "knowledge workers" want to go to places that have the 3 T's, "Technology, Talent and Tolerance". That is, where there already is a lot of technology, where there is a rich artistic and entertainment sector, lots of educational opportunities, where there are a lot of people with similar interests and where there are people from many diverse backgrounds and lifestyles. But not necessarily low city taxes. Do you agree, and what would be your ideal city to work in?"

Comments

Re:Things I've seen important to folks

[maggard]

No brainwasher got to me - I'm a gay man who along with likely a lot of straight folks wishes slugs like you would dry up in the sun & blow away. However failing that you're a perfect study as to why strong local communities & laws protecting folks from discrimination are important and how they're critical to developing a high tech community.

As to your employer being wiser to fire the non-whatever-you-are folks and going with your sort: Post their email address and I'm sure someone would be happy to pass your comment along.

Moderators: Read the original before calling this one - I refuse to dignify it with quoting but also refuse to let this sort of garbage go unchallenged. It's on topic because it's exactly the sort of issues that make one place attractive to high-tech employers/employees & others not.