How Burlington's Creative Class Explains Bernie Sanders

The Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is fond of citing Scandinavian and Nordic countries—often socialist democracies with huge shares of the creative class—as his models for economic prosperity. Countries like Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, for instance, all rank high on my Global Creativity Index. These nations are prime examples of what the political scientist Ronald Inglehart calls “post-materialist” nations, which, unlike traditional socialism, value self-expression over material goods.

They also bear a strong resemblance to Sanders’ own Burlington, Vermont—the state’s largest city and a prominent university hub—where Sanders served as mayor from 1981-1989. Home to the University of Vermont and private institutions like Burlington College and Champlain, the Burlington metropolitan area punches above its weight as a talent magnet despite its small population. Like Sanders, Burlington “has long embodied the earthy progressivism and can-do independence that define the state’s spirit,” as an August article in The New York Times put it. In fact, the city was the first in the U.S. to fund a community land trust and run entirely on renewable energy.