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The national best seller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.
The most valued workers today are what the economist Richard Florida calls the Creative Class, skilled individuals ranging from money managers to makeup artists, software programmers to steadycam operators who are in constant demand around the world.
In recent years the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well, Richard Florida argues in The New Urban Crisis. Florida demonstrates how the same forces that power the growth of the world's superstar cities also generate their vexing challenges: gentrification, unaffordability, segregation, and inequality.
Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that’s easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at. Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick.
All places are not created equal. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Florida shows that where we live is increasingly a crucial factor in our lives, one that fundamentally affects our professional and personal prospects. As well as explaining why place matters now more than ever, Who's Your City? provides indispensable tools to help you choose the right place for you.
From two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time National Book Award winner Robert A. Caro: a short, penetrating reflection on the evolution and workings of political power - for good and for ill.
The national best seller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.
The most valued workers today are what the economist Richard Florida calls the Creative Class, skilled individuals ranging from money managers to makeup artists, software programmers to steadycam operators who are in constant demand around the world.
In recent years the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well, Richard Florida argues in The New Urban Crisis. Florida demonstrates how the same forces that power the growth of the world's superstar cities also generate their vexing challenges: gentrification, unaffordability, segregation, and inequality.
Jeff Speck has dedicated his career to determining what makes cities thrive. And he has boiled it down to one key factor: walkability. The very idea of a modern metropolis evokes visions of bustling sidewalks, vital mass transit, and a vibrant, pedestrian-friendly urban core. But in the typical American city, the car is still king, and downtown is a place that’s easy to drive to but often not worth arriving at. Making walkability happen is relatively easy and cheap; seeing exactly what needs to be done is the trick.
All places are not created equal. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Florida shows that where we live is increasingly a crucial factor in our lives, one that fundamentally affects our professional and personal prospects. As well as explaining why place matters now more than ever, Who's Your City? provides indispensable tools to help you choose the right place for you.
From two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and two-time National Book Award winner Robert A. Caro: a short, penetrating reflection on the evolution and workings of political power - for good and for ill.
How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society, and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology - and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.
Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West but worldwide.
After decades of unchecked sprawl, more people than ever are moving back to the city. Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks, and tower dwelling improvements on the car dependence of sprawl?
Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term complexity can be misleading, however, because what makes West's discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities, and our businesses.
In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut.
With wit and sharp insight, former Traffic Commissioner of New York City, Sam Schwartz a.k.a. "Gridlock Sam", one of the most respected transportation engineers in the world and consummate insider in NYC political circles, uncovers how American cities became so beholden to cars and why the current shift away from that trend will forever alter America's urban landscapes, marking nothing short of a revolution in how we get from place to place.
Cities and the Creative Class gathers in one place for the first time the research leading up to Richard Florida's theory on how the growth of the creative economy shapes the development of cities and regions. In a new introduction, Florida updates this theory and responds to the critics of his 2002 best seller, The Rise of the Creative Class.
The essays that make up Cities then spell out in full empirical detail and analysis the key premises on which the arguments of Rise are based. He argues that people are the key economic growth asset, and that cities and regions can therefore no longer compete simply by attracting companies or by developing big-ticket venues like sports stadiums and downtown development districts. To truly prosper, they must tap and harness the full creative potential of all people, basing their strategies on a comprehensive blend of the "3 Ts" of economic development: Technology, Talent, and Tolerance. Long-run success requires a reinvention of regions into the kind of open and diverse places that can attract and retain talent from across the social spectrum by allowing people to validate their varied identities and to pursue the lifestyles and jobs they choose.
Florida wrote the “The Flight of the Creative Class”, which became an unexpected hit. This is a follow up that focus more on his data. I’d heard others try to explain his argument for a few years, before finally reading the book, and am struck by how much more convincing he is than those who argue on his behalf.
Florida’s question is what leads to sustained regional economic advantage. The short answer is creative people, by which he means those who create (at least virtually). This includes engineers, designers, technologist, and many entrepreneurs, as well as artists, but not necessarily highly educated professionals engaged primarily in non-creative work, even if they are highly paid. Apparently dollar for dollar creative work has far more positive externalities than almost anything else. Who would have guessed?
The focus of this book is the question what attracts creative people. The answer seems to be tolerance, first and foremost. In addition cool outdoor spaces seem to be a big secondary factor. And finally, creative people attract other creative people.
This much is only slightly controversial, but the details are explosively so. Of all the factors the Gay Index correlates highest with economic outcomes and the Bohemian Index is a close second. Other highly correlated factors include the Coolness Index, multi-racialism, outdoor recreation, and live music.
Are the future Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the world, gay bohemians who spend 30 or 40 hours a week mountain climbing and playing in garage bands? Probably not! Florida presents some data to this affect. Rather he claims that they are misfits who are not widely accepted. So it is the tolerance implied by the Gay Index or Bohemian Index that attracts the creative class. A secondary story seems to be that they find the, often unrealized, but furtive possibility of, extended adolescence attractive.
At any rate once they arrive, they work 90 hours per week to create something that they care about. If they succeed others translated this into something else, and over time this something else morphs into regional economic advantage.
What doesn’t work? According to the number: tax incentives, sporting venues, convention centers, civic pride, sense of place, and everything else that your local, or regional, government is probably trying. In fact, the numbers even suggest that higher education doesn’t work (but it can help a little bit around the edges).
3 of 3 people found this review helpful
great audio book, gave me a new perspective and an in-depth analysis. I'll be listen to other books, similar to this title.