CityLab crunches numbers behind Baltimore’s creative class

From Kevin Plank’s plans at Port Covington to digital marketing firms and, of course, the city’s arts and music scene, talk of Baltimore’s creative class is plentiful these days.
When measured by concentration of the workforce, Baltimore’s creative class has notched up a few points since 2000. That’s according to a new analysis released this week by the Atlantic’s CityLab: “The Winners and Losers of the U.S. Creative Class.”
Count Baltimore among the winners.
Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander of the Martin Prosperity Institute sought to track the growth of the creative class, which is defined here as “knowledge workers, tech workers, artists, designers, entertainers, and professionals in education, healthcare, and law, in 51 U.S. cities.
In those cities, Florida writes, the creative class has gained “millions more members,” accounting for about one-third of the workforce in cities.
Baltimore was already in the top 10 in 2000, posting 31.2 percent of the workforce. In 2014, it moved up two spots to the seventh spot, with 34.8 percent. Cities like San Jose (Silicon Valley), D.C., Boston, San Francisco and Seattle were ahead of Baltimore, along with Hartford, Conn.

Florida also points out cities that have seen the fastest growth and slowest growth of the creative class. Baltimore is in neither the top or bottom 10 of that category, perhaps suggesting some stability that’s on par with the country overall.
“When all is said and done, the winners and losers of the creative class look much the same in 2014 as they did in 2000,” Florida writes.