Events

The Laguna Beach LGBTQ Heritage & Culture Alliance, along with Visionary Sponsor and real estate investment firm Laguna Beach Company, and Title Sponsor, Bank of America, today announced registration is open for Diversity and The Creative Economy, a symposium featuring international best-selling Author and Urbanist Richard Florida. The symposium will be held on Monday, April 29, 2019 at Montage Laguna Beach from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and will provide a platform for community members, local business, civic, legislative, cultural and educational leaders to discuss how inclusion and creativity can foster economic mobility and prosperity for Orange County. A portion of the event’s proceeds will be donated to Laguna Beach Pride 365, Club Q Laguna at Laguna Beach Seniors and The Blaze Bernstein Memorial Fund.

Venture Café Philadelphia will kick off its first Thursday night gathering on November 29 with prominent urban studies theorist, Richard Florida. The inaugural Venture Café Philadelphia Thursday gathering will take place from 3 – 8 p.m. at the newly opened 3675 Market Street where the University City Science Center is headquartered.

Richard Florida is one of the world’s leading urbanists. He is a researcher and professor, serving as University Professor and Director of Cities at the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, a Distinguished Fellow at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, and a Visiting Fellow at Florida International University.

If city and civic leaders want an example of how instrumental the private sector can be in the transformation of a city, they can look at billionaire investor Dan Gilbert. Gilbert and his family of companies were highlighted during a Monday afternoon session for CityLab, a three-day conference at the GM Renaissance Center with participants from 156 cities across 27 countries. He sat down for a chat with Richard Florida, co-founder and editor at large of CityLab.com and senior editor of The Atlantic.

Richard Florida presents in Cork, Ireland on the future of cities.

Richard Florida speaks at ICMA event Monday, October 23 and urges conference attendees to focus on inclusivity in their communities and devolution in their government.

As Florida explained in a talk at the 2017 ULI Fall Meeting in Los Angeles, he warned of “a growing divide between places that are winning and places that are failing to keep up.” That societal split is the subject of his latest book, The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—and What We Can Do About It.

Interview for the British Land Blog during his recent events in London for LSE Cities and Centre for London.

Decades ago, one of the biggest challenges facing cities was the loss of residents brought on by the devastating effects of deindustrialization. As urban residents began flocking to the suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s, cities were confronted with rising levels of poverty, crime, and housing decay. While many of these issues still linger, our modern urban crisis is more extensive and encompassing than its predecessor. As cities continue to benefit from the return of wealthy, talented residents, they now face a number of challenges borne out of their very success. Where cities once benefited from sturdy middle-class neighborhoods, today’s urban areas are up against a disappearing middle class, as well as rampant gentrification and economic and racial segregation.