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What matters now is quality of place, defined as the intersection of three key elements of our cities: what’s there, who’s there and what’s going on.

A mega-region needs to think and act like a mega-region, not like a bunch of separate cities with empty space between them.

Fareed Zakaria: The end result will be a “landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now – one defined and directed from many places and by many peoples.”

“…we are experiencing modern history’s third great power shift, after the rise of the West from the 15th century on and then the rise of the U.S. in the 19th century.”

Leaders exploring new approaches to everything from education, crime and smoking bans to environment and climate change – even bringing modern management techniques to government. Their efforts and those of their peers have made their jurisdictions safer, smarter, greener, more aesthetic, more efficient, wealthier and more globally competitive.

This essay is an excerpt from Richard Florida’s article “The Rise of the Creative Class,” which originally appeared in the Washington Monthly magazine.

WE ARE ALL familiar with the rough geography of the United States — the slash of the Rocky Mountains between two great coastlines, the bulge of Maine, the Florida peninsula, the Great Lakes, set in the heartland. But what about the country’s psychogeography?

The most overlooked — but most important — element of my theory and of the creative economy itself is that every human being is creative.

“The diversity, of whatever kind, that is generated by cities rests on the fact that in cities so many people are so close together, and among them contain so many different tastes, skills, needs, supplies, and bees in their bonnets.”

WE ARE ALL familiar with the rough geography of the United States – the slash of the Rocky Mountains between two great coastlines, the bulge of Maine, the Florida peninsula, the Great Lakes, set in the heartland. But what about the country’s psychogeography?