The Creative Class in Greensboro

I came across Action Greensboro’s 2004 report on attracting the creative class to the area. The report listed quite a few actions that were planned that I’m going to try to get a report card on. I am curious how well these plans panned out. I know that over the last couple of years, GSO was able to attract some large business but, in my view, those business rely on displaced manufacturing workers, not creative types. In fact, the 2007 Action Greensboro reports that the “state of the city is less than robust” and that a disproportionate amount of the labor force is in manufacturing jobs compared to cities with similar characteristics.

Does that translate into a falure of the plan to attract the creative types? Does that bode poorly for the success of a coworking space that, in my current vision, relies heavily on an active freelance creative community? If a coworking space is somewhere on the continuum with coffee shop on one end and executive suites on the other, can a space be created that will cater to a larger audience? And does that space lose its values by tring to cast too wide a net?