Two local activists co-wrote an op-ed piece in the Republic on Sunday about one aspect of what Phoenix needs to do to move into the 21st century. That aspect is generally referred to as the Creative Class theory, though the authors don’t use the term.

A Canadian professor named Richard Florida in a series of books on the subject analyzes the relationship between economic development (particularly in high technology) and socioeconomic factors like education levels, social tolerance (particularly toward gays), and cultural accouterments.

The idea has been percolating around for nearly a decade and is a staple of discussions about modern city planning. (PHXated was on a panel at Phoenix Design Week recently that discussed how it related to Phoenix.)

In their essay, for example, Myra H. Millinger and Steve Betts cite this statistic:

In a Forbes survey of approximately 1,000 corporate executives, a strong and vibrant creative community was among the top-five determinants of location decisions for 74 percent of respondents. Only 24 percent ranked metro Phoenix as having that cultural vibrancy.

Even if the executives might have been overstating the issue’s importance, the fact that they felt compelled to do so is an indication of the analysis’s influence these days. The pair’s punch line, emphasized by me, is correspondingly devastating for the fifth-largest city in the country.

And remember that, in Creative Class terms, we’re not concerned about all corporate execs; we’re talking about a highly specialized (and desirable) slice of them: The ones at modern technology- and knowledge-related companies cities like Phoenix are now competing to attract. And you can bet the numbers for that slice would be much worse for Phoenix.

Anyway, most sane people will agree with what the pair say. I found two interesting things in their piece.

The first is they felt compelled to mince their words, and that’s not going to help anyone going forward. Here’s what they have to say about Arizona’s reputation:

This is of concern to every sector here competing for talent and industry. Add to this the recent unflattering images of Arizona transmitted virally across the globe, the misperceptions of who we are, and a lack of awareness of what makes us unique, and our world positioning will continue to falter.

Phoenix’s trouble is not about “misperceptions.” It’s about correct perceptions. This is the home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a national poster boy for hostility to immigrants and arguably the most potent symbol of brutal police power in the U.S. since the Civil Rights Era. The Mormon church, one of the most powerful organizations in the state, has put itself in the forefront of the anti-gay marriage campaigns here and nationally, notably in California’s bitter Prop. 8 battle last year—right under the noses of the nation’s high-tech industries.

In other words, on a good day by most Creative Class measures, Arizona would come in right above the Deep South; those two additional issues put the state near the bottom nationally for such an appeal.

So let’s be honest. Arizona doesn’t have to overcome misperceptions; it has to overcome reality.

Now, the second interesting thing about the essay is that the writers tacitly understand these problems. In response, their idea is to stress what they call an oasis:

This effort, under the umbrella of the Metro Phoenix DNA Initiative, has identified a compelling focus and distinctive themes that define this region’s strengths as the “Opportunity Oasis”—a place where meritocracy reigns and where open-space thinking, urban pioneering and a lush desert oasis present to the world a profile that is at once distinctive and of enormous appeal.

That’s a good description of what downtown might be like in a few years; intellectually, however, the small but vibrant Creative Class Phoenix does boast now will have to reconcile an oasis like that with the tragedy and intolerance around it.

It’s not impossible; Atlanta, for example, has managed to position itself as the capital of the south and correspondingly created an oasis for enlightened whites, blacks, gays and creative people. Even so, it’s not really a Creative Class mecca nor a particular high-tech destination.

I haven’t thought this out, but I’m intrigued by a variant of this, which I call the Enclave Gambit.

Can Phoenix create a city-within-a-city—corporeally set downtown, but with symbolic residents throughout the area—that tries to live, and create, and interact amongst themselves, set apart from a lot of the hate talk, intolerance, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and backwardness that otherwise characterizes most of the state?

Now, it’s a tough sell in Creative Class terms: “Trent Frank, John Kyl and John Shadegg hardly ever go downtown” isn’t something to base an economic development plan on.

But: One thing Phoenix doesn’t have as yet is a focused community dedicated to change—and for now, the Enclave Gambit might be the best way to form one.

p.s.: You can download the Metro Phoenix DNA Initiative here.