Who Are the Creative Class?
Throughout Professor Florida’s article on the creative class, a particular question was hanging over my head. Am I a member of the creative class? What sort of people represent the focus groups used in the research spoken about in the article? How did Prof. Florida identify them?
The Creative Class is presumably represented by young, “hip” college grads, mostly single and highly educated, but this didn’t help me make connections to any particular people in my life. I couldn’t produce a singular person who I knew that I would label as part of this major economic driving force. Of course, there were people who sort of fit the bill, but none were perfect matches. I would’ve thought in a place as liberal as New York City, I could’ve come up with a few concrete examples.
What did come to mind weren’t particular people, but places; places that had a feel of innovation that went beyond anything part of the design. The small Sugar Hill cafe dug beneath the side-walk on 145th street came to mind. So did Brooklyn Bridge Park and the 59th street subway platform. Places that sounded like small talk and had the smell of coffee, where ideas sharpen by conversation and disagreement. These coincidentally are the kinds of places I expect to find the demographic Florida keeps talking about, but again, faces were always blurred and unimportant.
I realized that the Creative Class was not really a class because people were only tangentially involved. Creativity arises from people in certain places during specific times when the social environment is correct. People play a role in creating an environment conducive to creativity but certain places lend themselves better to such an environment then others.
More then that however, creativity is something that exists in the atmosphere; spread out over a field instead of tied to any one particular thing. In other words, the people spoken of in this article are hypotheticals that embody something larger that is part of human nature; something that can’t be tied down to a class, which implies exclusivity. Anyone can be creative given the right environment.
3 Comments
Tala Azar
March 3, 2016You make a really interesting point about creativity being born out of certain times and places. I also struggled while reading Florida’s article to come up with tangible examples of people I knew who belonged to the “creative class.” Those that I did think of were mostly college friends who seemed hip and creative enough to fit this category.
However, I do think that this article is trying to categorize people as being a part of this class or not being a part of it. I got this impression simply by realizing that people were placed into groups based on their occupation, with another large group being those with service jobs.
With the rise of the creative class as more people begin to recognize the need for novelty and creativity in a variety of jobs, I believe this line between who is and isn’t a part of the creative class is becoming even more blurred, but the fact that it is there is still an essential part of the article.
kevincall
March 3, 2016I agree with comments made by both Tala and Michael. The article does try to categorize people into this creative class, but yes creativity is achievable by anyone and is as much a product of an environment as it is of the people. The article makes a point however that the members of this class crave diversity, uniqueness, individuality and so on. It’s not so much the occupations that they have, as they work in a broad range of industries, but what they bring to the table. The lifestyles they lead with the personal experiences they accumulate and understanding of multiple perspectives (from growing diversity), allow them to approach problems at work differently than their colleagues.
woo seok choi
March 3, 2016You did a great job of highlighting the shared influence of human and environment on each other. While I agree that the “right” creative environment often breeds creative people, I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss the people as being tangentially involved in the making of the creative class.
As you mentioned, I also related different sights of NYC to the creative cities described in the article. One of the great characteristics of NYC is its racial diversity and cultural tolerance. I think a big reason that it remains this way is because the people who live and grow up here are affected by the atmosphere and values of the city. But it’s important to note that creative people arise in otherwise uncreative environments as well. The author mentions the rock-star CMU student as an example of this case, and ties it into a growing trend of creative people moving into creative cities.
On a different note, I thought that the most important idea mentioned in the article was that the leaders of cities are often unwilling to change and adopt things essential for making a creative class and environment. I think this stubbornness is at the center of the growing disparity amongst cities concerning economics and quality of life. It’s also a problem in creating inter-group conflict, which hinders innovation.