The Creative Class

Been reading a bit about “The Rise of the Creative Class”, by CMU business profess Richard Florida. The general idea is that there’s this class of worker (the aforementioned creative class) comprised of people who do creative things for a living: artists, programmers, designers, and so forth. After the original article was published, a book followed. Since the idea was put forth in 2001, urban planners have been debating whether the whole affair holds water or not.

Although views are split over the economic veracity of Florida’s claims, the upshot is that he’s done a lot of work to define the living factors that are attractive to those of us in the creative class. You can see how your city ranks at the creative class website. The larger question is what role do creatives play in the economic machine; urban planners who jump on this bandwagon without critically understanding the economy of their region are probably going to waste a lot of taxpayer’s money. It’s a hard problem with competing perspectives.