Richard Florida’s chapter regarding the creative class goes over a topic that is not entirely foreign to me. The creative class, a new era in society, is a concept I have gone over in several of my sociology and economic classes in high school. However, what I enjoyed about this chapter was that Florida focused less on people, but more on the development of cities due to this rise of creative class. He zooms in on assumptions and old theories regarding the structure of cities and then challenges them to apply to the modern day cities. Florida’s ultimate point is that creative people need creative cities, and he does a great job by giving examples backed up by his own research.
The primary point that Florida brings up is that we have moved on from industrial cities, and have now moved on to creative cities. What people are looking for in cities has changed over time, and a prime example he gives is of the college student he refers to from Carnegie Mellon who is now choosing Austin, a still developing expanding city, versus Pittsburgh, an established older city, to live in. The previous qualifications a successful growing city have changed to increasing diversity, creativity, nightlife, activities and affordability instead. Initially people moved to cities because that’s where their work took them, but now industrial cities has changed to creative cities where people move to have an overall better lifestyle.
The next assumption that Florida successfully challenges is the original idea from Thomas Friedman, which is that “you can innovate without having to emigrate.” Globalization has made the world a smaller place for sure in terms of communication, however location still matters. This explains why that now more than ever the growth of cities and an urban area has imploded, resulting in 50% of cities containing 75% of the words population. Florida provides a good analogy by saying that the “world is anything, but flat, and its spikes are getting higher and higher.” The spikes are referring to the growing cities that have clusters of the creative class. Globalization doesn’t spread out activity evenly across the world, but rather it creates spikes where the most innovate and creative come together.
Another interesting point that Florida brings up is the idea of human capital. It was notable to see how Florida tied together urban theorist Jane Jacobs and Robert Lucas’ theories to come up with this new economic factor of human capital or as Lucas called it “Jane Jacobs externalities.” Labor, capital and knowledge are all-important economic factors but as Lucas points out there is nothing more important than the talent, ideas and energy real people bring in. I really liked the example of how the music industry which is very competitive and independent, has joined together in major cities such as Los Angeles and New York City. You would think that to face less competition, musicians and artists would spread out and dominate in the areas that they are in, but instead they rush to the innovate, creative cities where they all fight to rise to the top. This directly showcases how creative people come together to multiply together to exponentially grow.
Overall, I really enjoyed Florida’s piece because it ties directly back to our project. Understanding the basis of what a successful growing city is crucial to urban development. The way a city is structured and the different creative atmospheres it contains are important to the economic development of that city. Creative people, educated people, innovate people need a place to stay where they can express and work the most efficiently.
