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Tag: Canadian Cities

The Boho Index for Big Cities and Small

by Jamie
Design & Typography + Gift & Stationery / June 11, 2010

As the Canadian distributor for Moleskine, we are always looking out for information on people who love Moleskine. It is truism is that if you do creative work in your life you are probably a fan of Moleskine.

Richard Florida, theorist of the Creative Class, has a good post over at The Atlantic Monthly that discusses a recent study on the Boho Index for major North American cities (with populations over a million). Florida cites work from the Bohemian Index from the Martin Prosperity Institute that tracks cities with the highest percentage of working artists, musicians, writers, designers, and entertainers. Turns out that Canada is a Boho Haven.There are three Canadian cities in the Top 10; Vancouver is # 2, Toronto # 4 and Montreal rounds out the top ten. While flattering, none of this is hugely surprising.

But one of the major knocks against Creative Class theory is how can creative people actually afford to live in Creative Class cities? Most artists can't afford a fair-trade, organic, shade-friendly coffee at 49th Parallel in Kits let alone buy a house, condo or rent a single room apartment in Vancouver. This is what is cool about this index--it ranks smaller cities too, and here, Canada does very well: Halifax, Victoria, Peterborough, and Guelph all who have Boho Index values above the norm.

Lesson from all this? Grab your Moleskine Notebook and move to Peterborough, you will be very happy.