A little more than 14 years ago, government planners and enthusiastic citizens listened eagerly to a presentation by Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Florida, whose ideas on the “creative class” they were sure would help transform this city.
When Richard Florida, the 21st century urban studies guru, speaks, lots of people listen. Ears really perked up when Florida admitted, “I got it wrong that the creative class could magically restore our cities, become a new middle class like my father’s and were going to live happily forever after. I could not have anticipated among all this urban growth and revival there was a dark side to the urban creative revolution, a very deep dark side.” (Houston Chronicle, Oct 24, 2016).
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The Rise and Uncertainty of the Creative Class
THE RISE AND UNCERTAINTY OF THE CREATIVE CLASS
DEVIN ROSS, MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITYFEBRUARY 15, 2017
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The Next Industrial Revolution
In an increasingly mechanized world, creativity has become the new capital. But, according to social scientists, the economy may not yet be ready for the coming paradigm shift.
By Devin Ross, Middle Tennessee State University
In every industry, technology has revolutionized the way we do business.
It has not only fundamentally changed the way products are made, sold and distributed, but also how companies compete, how they are managed and how they interact with their customers. Perhaps the industries most affected by these changes are those engaged in creating content, or “the creative industries.” These include all industries related to fields such as advertising, architecture, design, fashion, film music, publishing, television and I.T.
Richard Florida is famous for popularizing the theory that creativity helps spur urban development: Artists and other bohemian types make places fun and attractive, and knowledge workers cluster in open-minded, tolerant communities with culture and the amenities that generally come with it. These advantages can compound over time, creating super-cities like New York, London, and Los Angeles, where rents are high but productivity and incomes are even higher.
Interview with Michiel Couzy, senior editor of Het Parool, the main newspaper in Amsterdam on The New Urban Crisis.
No one has done more to promote the return of educated professionals to cities than Richard Florida. In his 2002 classic The Rise of the Creative Class, Florida argued that “creative class” professionals like engineers, artists, architects, and college professors held the key to revitalizing America’s cities. He encouraged cities to cater to the tastes of these creative professionals by developing walkable urban neighborhoods well-served by transit and with ample amenities.
Ten years ago, author Richard Florida coined the term “creative class” to refer to the young, talented and affluent people who he believed would revive North American cities and lead them to grow and prosper.
In today’s San Francisco there is hardly any room for the middle class. Soon-to-be tech millionaires leave the city each morning on the Google Bus, headed to company headquarters in Silicon Valley, while the homeless and the permanently poor watch them pass. The Bay Area is home to more than 71 billionaires (second in the world only to the New York metro area) while about 14,000
“Today’s urban rentiers have more to gain from increasing the scarcity of usable land than from maximizing its productive and economically beneficial uses,” writes Florida, also noting that over a 50-year period, over half of New York City’s economic output was consumed by artificially high housing costs, to the benefit of what Adam Smith might have called “indolent” landlords (themselves often corporations, REITs and other wealth funds).
There has been a buzz in the past few weeks regarding a new book by the urban-studies theorist Richard Florida, the “New Urban Crisis.” Remember, Mr. Florida? He’s the one who extolled places such as Boston and Austin as the hope for America’s economy. In his previous seminal work, “The Rise of the Creative Class,” Florida had this to say about Boulder: “Boulder has reached this beautiful sweet spot, where it has many advantages of a university town — tech and talent and openness — but without many of the costs and traffic and congestion that may disadvantage incumbent centers of innovation.”
