Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

The Entertainment Economy — Double-Edged Sword

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James A. Bacon
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by James A. Bacon

As robots, artificial intelligence and other labor saving innovations penetrate the economy, traditional jobs that entail making things or providing routine services — Toro is testing a robotic lawn mower for golf courses, for Pete’s sake — could disappear. The only jobs that will be left, it seems, are those in which we humans entertain one another.

In apparent confirmation of this view, the American consumption of “entertainment” services — sports, music, theater, art — is one of the economy’s stronger growth sectors. Spending rose steadily over the 2000s until taking a hit in the 2007-2008 recession. The number of sports- and entertainment-related jobs also has grown — 30% over the past decade, reports Joshua Wright in New Geography.

The most entertainment-intensive metropolitan regions (measured by jobs as a percentage of the workforce) are, not surprisingly, Los Angeles (2.06 times the national average), Nashville (2.02 times), San Francisco (1.51 times), New York (1.43 times) and Las Vegas (1.29 times).

Also, no surprise, Virginia MSAs rank fairly low in sports/ entertainment intensity. The Washington metro ranks just above the national average — politics is a blood sport, after all — while Richmond ranks just under. Among the nation’s 50 metro areas, Hampton Roads ranks near the bottom.

Now, here’s what’s interesting for my ongoing analysis of the Richmond region’s creative class: Among the MSAs studied, Richmond ranked No. 2, behind Austin, in the growth in the number of sports/entertainment jobs between 2008 and 2012. Austin truly rocks. Ranking 6th in the country for sports/entertainment occupational intensity, the region grew the number of jobs in that category by 18.4%. But Richmond increased the number of jobs by 13.4%.

It’s not clear which specific occupational categories are leading the way in Richmond. Wright’s data does not drill that deep. But given the dearth of professional sports in the Richmond region, it’s difficult to imagine that the number of referees, umpires, coaches, scouts and professional athletes accounts for much of the increase — although the region does have exceptionally active amateur athletic programs. Based on my personal acquaintances, I’m guessing that musicians and singers predominate.

Be that as it may, the increasingly bohemian tint to the Richmond workforce augurs well for developing a culture of creativity and innovation, the traits needed to excel in a globally competitive knowledge economy. The downside is that these guys aren’t making much money. An average hourly wage of $15.50 an hour translates into annual income of about $31,000 a year.

Actually, the story is a bit more complicated than that. Wright makes the point that the big growth has been among the self-employed and free-lancers — “moms and dads coaching their kids (or serving as referees) in soccer, office workers moonlighting in a band that does local gigs, men and women working part-time for the local stage company as an actor or director.”

In other words, many people are working in the sports/entertainment occupations either because they got laid off from their regular jobs or they see the work as a supplementary source of income. Given my druthers, I’d like to see more scientists and entrepreneurs making fat salaries and creating massive wealth that trickles down to the rest of us. But, hey, you take what you can get. At least the town is a fun place to live.

Hat tip: FreeDem

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  1. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Gotta love Bacon. When statistics show Richmond has the worst education deficit among major Virginia MSAs Bacon says that’s good news because Richmond is creating jobs that require highly educated workers. The fact that failing to fill those positions is a guaranteed way to drive out those companies never seems to occur to Jim.

    Now, we have Richmond showing up below the national average and Bacon hailing the news as good news. He cherry picks a few years of growth and tries to translate bad news into good news.

    Jim, it’s nice to know that you like where you live. Richmond has a lot of assets. However, you will never capitalize on those assets until you take a clear eyed look at the MSA. I guess your effort to translate every bit of news (from a new meat pie store to a big educational deficit) into a positive obviates the need for any government sponsored action.

    Just once I’d like to see your 10 year plan for what needs to happen in Richmond to put it on the same path as any city you consider to be an example (Austin, Charlotte, Atlanta, RTP, wherever). What needs to happen and who needs to do it? At the end of the 10 years, how can we measure (quantitatively) the success of the plan?

    Of course, if you consider Richmond to be perfection embodied then I guess you won’t find another city to emulate. That would make your 10 year plan more difficult to develop.

  2. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Don, Yes, I like my home town. But it’s ridiculous to say that I consider it to be “perfection embodied.” To the contrary, I’ve always said that we’re trying to find economic development in all the wrong places and that we have a lot of work to do. I’ve just found that I make a lot more progress in converting people to my way of thinking by leavening criticism with positive examples. It’s not enough to point out to someone what he’s doing wrong, you need to point out what he’s doing right.

    Of course, I could always adopt the Don Rippert strategy — blame everything on someone else. I could carp on all the limitations that others are placing on Richmond. Maybe I could blame Northern Virginia! Yes, that’s it, I could dedicate my blogging to showing how every flaw in Richmond somehow is the fault of the obnoxious, overbearing politicians that Northern Virginia sends to the General Assembly and the obnoxious, arrogant and [fill in the blank with invective of your choice] people of Northern Virginia!

    But, no, in good conscience, I can’t do that because I don’t believe it. I’ll stick with making the case for keeping taxes low; building more walkable/bikable communities; eating healthy, locally grown food; cleaning up the water and air; reforming the health care system; reforming education; and figuring out how to make the community more attractive generally for skilled, talented, educated wealth creators.

    That’s a long, long list of things that need fixing. Do I really come across as someone who thinks that Richmond is perfection personified?

  3. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    “Do I really come across as someone who thinks that Richmond is perfection personified?”.

    You come across as a journalist when you write about anything outside of Richmond. You come across as a copy writer for the Richmond Chamber of Commerce when you write about Richmond.

    How did you introduce your post about kayaking on the James River on your Facebook account? “Yes, Richmond is awesome.”. How should people view the objectivity of a journalist who writes, “Yes. Richmond is awesome.”?

    Have you ever written anything like, “Yes. Charlottesville is awesome.”?

    There is a definite difference in your objectivity when you write about Richmond than when you write about anything or anywhere else.

    My opinion, anyway.

  4. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Fair enough. I’m sure it’s confusing to readers. Sometimes I wear a journalistic hat and sometimes I wear a commentator’s hat. I’m not sure how to resolve that problem.

  5. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Woah!

    Far be from me to try to be a peacemaker, but JAB and DJR should be friends. I agree Jimbo goes a little overboard in his enthusiasm for Richmond and ignores a lot of its problems. Mr. Bacon tends to meld the rich , white suburbs with the inner city which still has huge problems with poverty, education, etc. Greater Richmond is actually a bastion of non-regionalism. Details on request. But I’ll give Richmond credit — I think it actually has better race relations than some Northern or Midwestern cities. But this “Capital of Creativity” campaign is Chamber of Commerce bullshit. I mean that precisely. It came from the Great Richmond Chamber of Commerce, Venture Richmond, the publisher’s office of the Richmond Times-Dispatch the Trani Whatever Institute and is designed to whitewash whatever “Richmond” they are talking about and ignore problems. It is sort of like Grady of the Atlanta newspapers inventing and pushing the concept of the “New South” many years ago when Georgia was still enforcing Jim Crow and busting unions.
    Don the Ripper is correct that JAB does not extend his boosterism to NOVA-land which has many times the economic muscle and contributes a whole lot more to state taxes. NOVA-land is truly Virginia’s threshold to the global economy, yet we are stuck with Dulles’s ridiculous access problems. NOVA-land is stuck with lots of road woes while we here in the Richmond area have riderless Pocahontas Parkways.
    That said, I think JAB has a right to like where he has chosen to settle. However, I do think it would be healthier for his Blog site if he wrote fewer puff pieces about Richmond and focussed a little more on the problems of Virginia in general from the Eastern Shore to Cumberland Gap.

  6. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Naw.. Jim stays between the lines.. it’s easy to tell when he’s slipping into rah rah mode.

    DJ is in a pretty serious “blame” others mode these days… he apparently was born in the wrong state and deeply resents it.

    🙂

    1. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      Virginia – love it or leave it? Hmmm … where have I heard that before?

      The great tragedy of Virginia is the missed potential. When I see North Carolina, Texas, Florida or even Georgia doing things we could easily do, it pisses me off.

      The formula really isn’t that hard to grasp. Essentially, you let localities have some latitude. This creates the equivalent of competition. Some localities will try things that work. They will prosper. People will move there. Some will try things that fail. People will leave. No state is so homogenous that a centralized Politburo – like government can make the right decisions for all the localities in the state.

      The inbred mentality of Virginia (at the state government level) is stunning. Do you know how many times I’ve been called by local political officials to ask whether I’d consider relocating or expanding in their stare? It happens all the time. Utah, Mass, NC. Do you think I have ever been called by anyone in VA? Of course not.

      When I go to meetings in New York and tell people that we have offices in Mass, VA and Ca – they all want to know how I see the workforce, how can NY become more like Silicon Valley. When I meet with people in Virginia, they could care less.

      The attitude here is both stunning and disheartening,

      1. larryg Avatar
        larryg

        not love it or leave it but how do you change? These states you hold up as better – likely were less better in the past and enough business folks stepped up and advocated the changes needed.

        But I have to say – if businessmen in Va think like DJ do and consider Virginia remiss and backward….

        I’m not hearing that

        and

        neither are the elected officials in Va.

        so somehow..there is a disconnect….

        How about this?

        How about a 5 point list of specific things that other states have done and Va has not and suffers because they have not changed?

        I think the “blame” need to be channeled into something that advocates change rather than condemnation.

  7. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    but I WILL say this. DJ has the ability to write for BR and I see that as forcing him to be more objective in his writings.. so I urge him to write more pieces for BR.

    There’s a certain discipline required when you write something more formal and others will read it expecting some level of objectivity.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Okay. Some I’m expecting a blog post from DJ – entitled:

    “The 5 most important things Virginia needs to do to compete with other states”.

    DO it DJ. Make your case!

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