by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Deviants, freaks, musicians, gay hairdressers and maybe even those craftspeople who weave Himalayan wool hats - rejoice! You're wanted. Shake your woolly dreads, your tattooed and pierced hide is being recruited!

Urban economists have recently embraced a new theory that values the creative class - überhipster non-conformists as the key to the future of cities. This is thrilling news for Montreal, a city where you can't slip on the ice without being caught by a spoken word performer trying to sell you a chapbook.

Y'see, many American cities - with big churning smokestacks, people who work 20 hours a day, Wal-Marts packed to the gills - are suffering a slow economic decline. Their future is imperilled because they're seen as too dorky to recruit talented workers seeking a high quality of life.

The theory deems that cities need culture freaks in order to make the dynamic creative class feel at home. Those who have shown low tolerance to slackers, transvestites and tam-tam players are madly trying to mend their ways. Cities that previously cocked an eyebrow at freaks are forming committees, even doling out cash, in order to implant a hipster culture.

Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class has snowballed into the consciousness of urban planners stuck in the Jane Jacobs orthodoxy, which deemed that a city was okay as long as it had grannies looking out the window for burglars.

And so just when many thought Montreal was turning into the Milwaukee of the North, this new theory could reclassify us as the premium city in North America.

The author's Web site, www.creativeclass.org, only ranks the most creative American cities, so we don't know what he thinks of us. San Francisco is tops, followed by Austin, Boston, San Diego, Seattle, Raleigh-Durham, Houston, D.C. and New York.

I'd say we have at least as much freakazoidosity as any of these places, except you can visit an ATM here without having to worry about "catching a cap." We have a real downtown and can close our bridges to suburbanites at a moment's notice. Plus we've got the requisite tattoo shops, hackey sack doofuses, nightclubs, sexy serveuse cafés and plenty o' Value Villages for slackerwear.

Florida's analysis also says that the unmolested existence of gays is a radically good thing, thus our Village-full of gays are apparently doing us the favour of giving us a queer eye urban renewal job.

In fact, other than the recent, misguided notion of shutting down our afterhours clubs, our city not only tolerates rebel and other spontaneous grassroots youth culture but embraces it.

However, don't be surprised if America starts poaching our underfed and under-appreciated artsy slackers. The author cites examples of Frisbee-tossing corporate recruiters hanging around campuses trying to get young freaks to move to their towns. So hook up your nose ring and get right out there and let the bidding begin, you might earn a red carpet trip to one of the low-ranking cities on the creativity index rankings (no word on how they were determined), which surprisingly includes New Orleans and Las Vegas.

The least creative big city is deemed to be Memphis, which has tried to get hip by various official methods. According to a recent New York Times article, they don't seem to be succeeding. When I visited my brother there, we motored slowly through the sprawl (they'll bust ya if you go near the speed limit). We ate ribs at an Isaac Hayes theme restaurant, walked along Beale Street for two blocks, and he then asked, "So, what did you think?" I said, "Um, of what?" "Downtown, that was it."

Some hip-hungry Yank burgs clearly have a major task ahead of them.

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A big thanks to the many strangers, friends, colleagues, family, journalists, fall-down drunks and issue lobbyists who have contributed to this column in 2003. Although too many to mention, your generosity, patience and unrelenting kindness are hugely appreciated. A fabulous holiday season to all.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca