Richard Florida, whose influential ‘Rise of the Creative Class’ pegged cities’ future to their success in cultivating that group, says a new urban crisis is spreading as a few metros win almost all the marbles. But something deeper than city-level policies is at work, too.
In The New Urban Crisis Richard Florida, an American University professor and current director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, compellingly and convincingly defines the problems facing today’s cities and their suburban counterparts.
For over 30 years, urbanist and author Richard Florida has observed the life of cities, and has come up with solutions on how to make them work. In his new book, The New Urban Crisis, Florida argues that cities will have to turn to themselves to help themselves and to make them more inclusive for all.
In 2017, the cacophony of Toronto’s urban discourse—and urban realities—makes understanding the city a daunting prospect. The skyrocketing rents, record waitlists for affordable housing, growing economic disparities, and inadequate transit, are being met with staggering development and densification, growing economic status, and a waxing global cachet that’s rivalled by few cities. Our city leads the world in livability and human development indices, while simultaneously facing an affordability crisis that threatens to make good urban housing the sole purview of the rich.
Columbus remains a beacon in the Rust Belt, known nationally for its fast-growing population and robust economy. But a researcher who studies urban disparity says the city also stands at a dangerous crossroads, one that threatens to choke off the path to a middle-class livelihood.
Miami has been on a roll. It is attracting people at a rapid clip, it is a center of arts, culture and design, and its entrepreneurial ecosystem is growing. Today the region is at a critical inflection point. How can it grow further? How can it deepen its startup ecology? How can it ensure that its growth is inclusive, and that all Miamians can share in a new era of more inclusive prosperity?
To know PR maven Ann Layton is to love her, so when she asks for your support on something, you reply with a resounding yes!
Whether you’re a would-be Philanthropist/Social-Entrepreneur or have spent decades being one. You could be worse-off than to read the short biographies of those who’ve been through the journey before.
Anton Diego, born in Moscow but raised in Havana and Spain, runs EveryMundo, a Miami-based marketing-technology company serving the travel and hospitality industry.
