After a two-week break, The Colbert Report returned with tales of Stephen Colbert spending his vacation digging an escape tunnel for Scooter Libby as well as a brief interview with urban studies professor Richard Florida. Colbert wanted to discuss a paper Florida published a few months ago, "There Goes the Neighborhood" How and Why Bohemians, Artists and Gays Affect Housing Values," (PDF link) which, as Colbert explained it:

The theory is tolerant communities where homosexuals are likely to reside nurture an open-mined culture of creativity which can lead to innovations like Google, YouTube or ShirtlessHunks-BaggingGroceries.com

(If you're wondering, that URL has been purchased by someone who has put up a placeholder page. I eagerly await seeing a full website and hope they find the lovely guys who bag groceries at the Bay Area Trader Joe's stores.)

Colbert made fun of the "Bohemian-Gay Index" which Florida used to rate various cities for their gay friendliness and creativity as sounding like "another name for the San Francisco phone book" (San Francisco did rank as one of Florida's most gay-friendly cities.)

Florida managed to survive the interview, where Colbert was tossing out some real zingers like when Colbert asked, "Should I be following gay people around to see where they're living?" He didn't do a lot more than laugh and agree. "Good," Colbert continued, "I do it already, now I have a reason."

Colbert ended the interview by asking Florida if he were just a gay bohemian looking to increase his home value, Florida gave a roundabout denial by noting that he and his wife did indeed just sell their home for a profit. Colbert also made the point that when gays and artists move into communities and housing values go up, the gays and artists in question generally put the money back into the communities. So basically what we have here is two straight guys telling America to welcome gays and bohemians into their neighborhoods as it will benefit them financially as homeowners and improve their community.

Score another point for Colbert.

By the way, am I the only one whose head is spinning from reading about a man named Florida talking about cities, not including any in Florida?