The only reform [of the Scholastic Aptitude Test] that is likely to de-emphasize parental money and sophistication is the reform being pushed by the President of the University of California: test only actual knowledge generally learned in a college-track high school curriculum (i.e., a series of SAT II achievement exams), rather than the psuedo-knowledge and test-aptitude tested by the SAT I Verbal and the junior-high-level math tested by the SAT I Math.

So... you're having these wholesale creative-class migrations into places like San Francisco, Austin, Boston, Washington, D.C., Boulder, and then the indigenous populations, the working-class and service populations, are having to leave because they just can't afford to live there anymore.

That's a terrible thing on lots of levels, not the least of which is the ultimate contradiction that some of these creative-class places are going to face: that they're going to drive out a lot of the creativity that comes from people who are not "in" the creative class but who are incredibly creative. As the book points out, a lot of creativity comes from so-called disadvantaged or ghetto neighborhoods. If you wipe them out, then you wipe out the ability not only for low-income folks to use the creativity that comes from their own communities, but you make it harder and harder for artists and other culturally creative types to relocate to places because they can no longer afford it. Then sooner or later that place is going to become boring.

Salon.com Books | Be creative -- or die

[Austin] created a lifestyle mentality, where Pittsburgh and Detroit were still trapped in that Protestant-ethic/bohemian-ethic split, where people were saying, "You can't have fun!" or "What do you mean play in a rock band? Cut your hair and go to work, son. That's what's important."

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