One of the nation’s foremost experts in economy building says that a community seeking a strong and healthy commerce must tap into the creativity of all its members. Author and adviser Richard Florida will bring his message to Naples on May 20, 2009 when he addresses community and business leaders at a program entitled “It Pays to Be Creative,” part of the ongoing Project Innovation sponsored by the Economic Development Council of Collier County.
The world needs to grow in a way that it can meet the needs of today while preserving the resources for tomorrow. Global City 2009 held in Abu Dhabi recently highlighted some seminal issues confronting urban development – and the way cities must tackle them.
There is currently a flurry of media attention on Detroit as a haven for enterprising young artists. Can artists really save a piece of a “ruined city,” a “dying city,” a city that has defied all other attempts at renewal? What has yet to be acknowledged, however, is how an artistic revival of Detroit might present the city with challenges in its very success.
Urbanist Jane Jacobs’ idea of the successful city is central to the theory — an adaptive place where new ideas and people gather in numbers and then are “tossed together in serendipitous ways,” as Seltzer puts it. This sort of open city attracts creative people, according to the research of author Richard Florida, especially young creative people. And the more of them, the better-placed a city is for the next economy.
University of Toronto professor Florida argued in his groundbreaking 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, that the young, urban creative types who are revitalizing cities tend to be far more socially liberal and tolerant of diversity than the average evangelical.
Richard Florida’s thought provoking and revolutionary ideas about the future of housing and economic development.
Florida is a leading advocate of developing culturally vibrant communities, saying they attract the ‘creative classes,’ leading to economic growth by building a city where people want to live, play, work and invest. This would be a refreshing direction, one that could add charm and creativity to downtown Barrie, fostering a ‘sense of place.’
Richard Florida, has urged President-elect Barack Obama to eschew crude investments in traditional production and a renewed housing market in favor of goodies directed to what he calls the creative industry.
President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to strengthen the federal commitment to our cities and it’s importance is seen with his creation of a new position, the White House Office of Urban Policy. Along these lines is Richard Florida’s view that the concept of the creative class of workers is a key element of metropolitan stability and progress.
