“The Rise of the Creative Class” is a bestselling book by Richard Florida. The book provides useful insights into urban policies and the creative economy. The book has a subtitle that reads “…and how it is transforming work, leisure, community, and everyday life” (Florida 1). This subtitle highlights book’s ability to transform the views of both readers and policy makers. Florida’s book utilizes research findings to highlight the importance of tolerance, good lifestyles, and diversity when attracting professionals in one place. The ability of a city to attract highly qualified and creative professionals has been referred to as the city’s ‘sticky’ ability.
According to the author, economic considerations are not the only factors that determine why people prefer living in a certain area. Several aspects of the city life are explored in this book including how livable cities are likely to be economically successful. According to “The Rise of the Creative Class”, the model of creating a successful creative city should not only embrace the advanced economic aspects of a place but also the ‘sticky’ aspects of that place.
Recently, there have been various attempts to maintain the momentum of cities as productive urban areas. These attempts have seen various policy changes when it comes to urban development. Previously, most policy changes involved using arts and culture to achieve urban transformation (Comunian 1159). The need to transform cities stems from the reversal of industrialization that took place in the twilight years of the 20th century. Most city-reform efforts involved big city-themed festivals and cultural events. Examples of these efforts include branding of the city during Barcelona Olympics with a banner that read ‘European City of Culture’.
In some instances, city centers have been developed with the aim of achieving transformation. This was the case in the cities of Manchester, Birmingham, and Baltimore. Florida’s book offers new hope for the development of cities during the turn of the millennium. However, his optimism lies with the ability of the cities to act as centers of creativity. On the other hand, this creativity is propelled by the “Keynesian macroeconomic policy” (Florida 45). The central idea behind Florida’s thinking is that it is possible to stimulate consumption in cities using the resources of new and creative workers who decide to settle in a certain city. The theory forwarded by these claims is often referred to as the creative class theory. According to this theory, the creative members of the society are pertinent to cites’ economical development and policy formulation.
The impact of Florida’s theory is evident in various places around Europe and North America. Ever since the book was published, excerpts of it theoretical claims have been implemented in cities all around the world. Even though the book was published in 2004, cities around the world have quickly adopted its claims. It is hard to discard policies that have been so influential to both the academic and political class. No aspect of this book has been discarded in its entirety. Policy makers have embraced the book’s economic, social, and structural perspectives on city transformation. The popularity of the book’s policies and claims acts as proof of the author’s resourcefulness.
One of the claims made by the author concerning cities is that the elements that led to the creation of cities in the eighteenth century have since changed. Cities of today are propelled by the lifestyle and consumption benefits that they offer to their inhabitants. According to the book, low transport costs have eliminated the need for workers to live in close proximity to their workplaces. Therefore, residents have a wide range of choices to consider for their residential needs.
For a long period of time policy makers have sought to discover motivating factors that might help increase the preference rates of their cities. For example, during the 1900s close proximity to resources was the main driving force behind city transformations (Glaeser 30). However, today’s city transformations are determined by a city’s residents. A city’s main driving force is its ability to consume highly skilled people. Several researchers concur with Florida and his views about the importance of a city’s ability to attract highly trained people (Kolko and Saiz 34).
“The Rise of the Creative Class” offers the perfect recipe of urban planning. According to the book, a city’s creative lot is responsible for its development. Therefore, urban planners need to design cities that would be favorable to the creative lot. Cities that are more accommodative to the creative minds are more likely to achieve stickiness. Although these claims are rarely disputed, the author’s claims about what attracts highly creative people are usually the subject of major criticism. The book argues that creative people are attracted to “funky, socially free areas with cool downtowns and lots of density” (Florida and Knudson 77).
The problem is that the Bohemian people as they are referred to in this book are said to be attracted to environments that most people work hard to move away from. The book seems to assume that there is a huge fundamental difference in terms of the environmental preferences between creative and non-creative people. The evidence in the ground shows that this claim might be misleading. For instance, the book classifies most top-level managers as creative people.
It is common knowledge that most top-level managers are attracted to sparsely populated suburbs with guaranteed security as opposed to populated downtowns that are characterized by insecurity. The urban design that is defined in the book is also faulted by the fact that some of the most successful towns in America do not have the design features that are said to attract the Bohemian people. For instance, Plano, Texas was once the leading town in America skill wise and it does not have any of the features that are defined by the book (Florida 89).
It is possible to investigate Florida’s claims using the data he provides in this book and crosschecking some of his resources. Through research, this book is able to come up with definitive indexes such as creativity index, the gay-index, and the Bohemian index. The creativity index is achieved by correlating several sets of data. The first data set comes from the number of people who are in highly creative careers while the second set includes the total number of gay people in a certain area in relation to the total population of the area. The third data set is made up of the per capita income of an area as of 1990.
The last data set defines the number of Bohemian (artistic people) people in a certain area in relation to the total population. After crosschecking the validity of this data, and how the book utilizes it, a few disparities are evident. For instance, the first data set seems to ignore the effect of a college education among the so-called creative people (Florida 48). The author seems to credit the level of education as creativity. This is in spite of the fact that creativity and the level of education are two independent factors. The level of education also affects outcomes in the per capita and Bohemian indexes. Throughout the book, the impact of education on a city’s transformation dynamics is not addressed.
This is a major oversight and it can be used to discredit most of the views that are found in this book. Creativity is fundamentally different from the level of education even though the two are related. Inclusion of this aspect would have helped solidify most of the research findings in this book.
The book’s main idea is that the creative class has an undeniable relationship with the development of urban areas. The book asserts that “cities are cauldrons of creativity” (Florida 1). Therefore, a creative city is fundamentally a successful city. The idea of creative cities seemed to coincide with the advent of the information technology industry and it is highly creative. Several policy makers around the world have benefited from policy changes that are sourced from this book.
Even though the book is the subject of various criticisms, its claims marked the recognition of the concept of creative cities. The book was also able to come up with easy to implement measures that could inject vibrancy to new and existing urban settings. Although the book is not quite a full-fledged academic piece, it qualifies as an above average work of social science. In the least, “The Rise of the Creative Class” is a resourceful book that seeks to blend optimism with practicality. The book has several valid criticisms but it is able to prove the relationship between a city’s stickiness and creativity.
Works Cited
Florida, Richard and Brian Knudson. Beyond Spillovers: The Effects of Creative- Density on Innovation, New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2004. Print.
Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class and how it’s Transforming Work, Life, Community and Everyday Life, New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2002.Print.
Comunian, Roberta. “Rethinking the Creative City the Role of Complexity, Networks and Interactions in the Urban Creative Economy.” Urban Studies 48.6 (2011): 1157-1179. Print.
Kolko, Jed and Albert Saiz. “Consumer City.” Journal of Economic Geography 1.1 (2001): 27-50. Print.
Glaeser, Edward L. “Cities, Information, and Economic Growth.” Cityscape 1.1 (1994): 9-47. Print.