There are no smoking gun photographs or sound recordings to prove that Raleigh made a deal with the devil. But as the city has prospered beyond our wildest imagination, some people have wondered if the price for that growth has been the city's soul.

That question was topic one for the artists, entrepreneurs, teachers and other creative residents who gathered last month for the second annual SparkCon festival. By soul, they did not mean one's eternal spiritual essence but the shade-grown, free-range, let-the-good-times-roll energy that puts the hip in your hop.

Raleigh has always needed a bit more mo in its jo; sometimes it seems like its cutting edge couldn't make it through warm butter. As Texans work to "Keep Austin Weird," Raleigh unveiled a statue honoring Andy and Opie.

Me, I like nice; "pleasant" is no put-down in my book. I love the unassuming warmth and charm that define the city.

If Raleigh hasn't found its funk in recent years, it's not for lack of trying. And the SparkCon vision of a jazzier, more eclectic downtown that attracts and nourishes creative risk-takers is appealing.

In full flower, this would mean more than just cool coffee bars and trendy restaurants. The report from the first SparkCon imagines a new type of community -- a "vibosphere" -- with salons, galleries, museums, street art, public speaking venues, graffiti walls and music spaces plus cycling and walking greenways and a fully functioning mass transit system that would help us "lead the way in the development of green technologies."

Problem is, not everyone is aching to crib in the vibosphere. So the challenge for hipsters in Raleigh and across America -- from Providence to Denver to San Diego -- is convincing mainline residents that they will lead happier, richer lives if more of their neighbors sport piercings, paint brushes and Ph.D.'s.

Their pied piper is the economist Richard Florida, who outlined the basic philosophy in his 2002 book, "The Rise of the Creative Class." Fusing Adam Smith and Pablo Picasso, Florida asserted that cities will rise and fall depending on their ability to attract members of the "creative class."

These highly educated, well-paid folks, he wrote, "do a wide variety of work in a wide variety of industries -- from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts." They do not "consciously think of themselves as a class. Yet they share a common ethos that values creativity, individuality, difference and merit."

Claiming to have solved the chicken/egg riddle of economic growth -- do people attract jobs, or do jobs attract people? -- Florida argued that businesses flock to communities with lots of creative people. To ensure growth, cities must satisfy their people's needs.

What do creative people want? Florida's analysis, echoed in many SparkCon discussions, says they favor "active participatory recreation over passive institutionalized forms. They prefer indigenous street-level culture -- a teeming blend of cafes, sidewalk musicians, and small galleries and bistros, where it is hard to draw the line between performers and spectators." They love active sports and seek public venues for "bicycling, jogging and kayaking ... trail running and snowboarding" (which might be tough for Raleigh).

And they value tolerance and diversity. In one of his most provocative arguments, Florida ties the health of cities to the size of their homosexual population. This "Gay Index," he writes, reflects "an area's openness to different kinds of people and ideas."

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