HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) -- Could losing two of the region's most important corporate headquarters somehow be a good thing?
That might be a stretch.
But the author of one of the most influential books on luring people who create new ideas and new technology says Philadelphia's gain is not entirely Harrisburg's loss.
"Don't bemoan the loss of Rite Aid and Harsco," Richard Florida, author of "The Rise of the Creative Class," said Friday in a wide-ranging interview from his current home city of Toronto, where he is a professor.
Florida first defined and wrote about the "creative class" during his two decades as a professor at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University and in 2018 became the first "Philadelphia Fellow."
Florida noted that Rite Aid, in particular, said it isn't truly moving thousands of employees from its current headquarters in East Pennsboro Township to Philadelphia. Rather, many will be free to continue living and working -- most days, anyway -- in Midstate Pennsylvania, and they'll travel to Philadelphia for in-person brainstorming.
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The announcements by both companies seemed like evidence, perhaps, of a reversal in a pandemic-long trend of people moving from big cities to places like the Midstate. But Florida said it's neither an either/or proposition nor a zero-sum game.
"As much as it seems painful to lose these two units, in a way it reflects a better news story for central Pennsylvania in that central Pennsylvania is becoming a place of choice for talented people who want an affordable, less rat-race lifestyle," Florida said. "And I think companies are going to Philadelphia because they can connect and collect people from all those destinations [with good air, rail and road links]. So I think in a way, it could be a win-win."
So if Midstate municipalities shouldn't bother asking themselves how to attract and retain corporate headquarters, what questions should they be asking themselves?
"What kind of coffee shops or small restaurants or co-working spaces do they need?" Florida said, to attract remote workers employed by companies based in places like Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Baltimore and Pittsburgh.
"The future of competition isn't about business headquarters," Florida said. "It's about attracting talented people. And you" -- Midstate Pennsylvania, that is -- "have all the ability to do that."
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