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Nearly 20 years ago, urban theorist Richard Florida identified a group of highly-skilled workers whose outsized contributions were driving economic change and development in cities around the globe. His book, “the Rise of the Creative Class” detailed the characteristics of this type of worker and more importantly how to nurture and attract them. Its core findings were adopted by mayors worldwide. The trends identified in Florida’s research contributed to the seismic shifts, growth and revitalization in downtowns large and small. Those changes have not been painless for all involved and have lead to what Florida, in his new book, calls the “New Urban Crisis.” So when Richard Florida asks What the Future, he wonders if developers are recognizing the new realities.

Fortunately, when it comes to cities, there is Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and author of The Rise of the Creative Class, which explained how a new generation of people was reviving ailing industrial centres. Now, he is explaining how that trend is, among other factors, helping to intensify the issues confronting many urban centres. The New Urban Crisis is subtitled “Gentrification, Housing Bubbles, Growing Inequality and What We Can Do About It”, and, while Florida’s analysis of how we got here is unsurprisingly insightful, it is that last bit that is crucial.

In a new book titled “The New Urban Crisis,” Florida reverses much of his earlier optimism about the potential of knowledge-hub cities. These metropolises, he contends, have now become engines of inequality and exclusion.