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5.0 out of 5 stars
Richard Florida for President,
By Lori "Lori" (wisconsin) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Rise Of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (Paperback)
Richard Florida sees clearly what our present leadership does not- our country is in transition and the old rules no longer apply . He systematically shows through his research that cities that are thriving economically, intellectually and culturally are developing around a base of diversity, flexibility and tolerance. Talented people are moving to places that appeal to them and will allow them to reach their potential. He shows the only non-renewable resource is time and the only renewable resource the human intellect. Type his name into Google and you will find pages of growing city planning commissions either listening to him speak or their members quoting his book.Run, Richard, run!
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very interesting--surprisingly informative and worthwhile.,
By Quickhappy "quickhappy" (Big city, big country) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Rise Of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (Paperback)
I think many of the preceding reviews provide insight on this book: the argument is a tough-sell, it relies on generalizations, and it doesn't get everything right. However, I don't this book is meant to be a final statement, but rather the beginning. Taken in that light, Florida's work has great importance for cities and governments as we try to lay the foundations for sustained prosperity and happiness in the USA. At a time when stadium boondoggles are soaking taxpayers around the country, Florida's book is urgently relevant. The argument may need some work, but hey: entrepreneurs of all kinds tend to thrive in a diverse, artsy, weird, non-conformist environment. Corporate welfare is not the answer (see Detroit), bike lanes and grunge music is (see Portland, OR). Wealth and happiness is ultimately created by people, not by giant corporations. Devising a great place to live, where people have great parks, schools, arts, and freedoms is the best path to the well being of economies and citizens alike.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
a relic of the bubble economy,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Rise Of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (Paperback)
This book was conceived during the 1990s when the high-tech bubble economy caused a labor shortage which made it possible for recent college grads with the right "hot" skills to "write their own tickets". Professor Florida wondered why Pittsburgh, his home town, was having trouble attracting high-tech talent, and graduates from local schools were choosing to move away. He found that these young, single, upper-income, well-educated people were making job choices based on geography. They wanted to live somewhere "fun" for young people. That is with amenities such as a vibrant night life, opportunities for outdoor recreation such as biking, rock climbing, etc. Thus they chose places like Austin TX with its music scene over Pittsburgh with its symphony.This is interesting enough, and Florida makes the connection to earlier work (especially that of Jane Jacobs) on what makes a city an "authentic" and interesting place to live. It is well known that as time goes on, so-called "knowledge workers" are becoming a larger and larger part of the economy. However Florida, perhaps driven to some "irrational exuberance" by the bubble economy we were living in when he was writing this, makes some pretty outlandish claims for the importance and power of this class of workers (which he calls "the creative class"). As of mid-2004, this all seems a quaint relic of 1990s "new economy" optimism. He also fails to address two things which have had a huge impact on the labor market in recent years: He mentions but does not address at any length the collapse of the high-tech bubble, and what impact this change will have on the phenomena he describes. It would seem that most of what he describes is (at least for now) no longer true, as high-tech workers can no longer pick and choose but are now in the position of being glad to find any job at all. He does not mention at all the phenomenon of overseas outsourcing. This may not have been a hot topic when the book was written but by the time (Fall '03) he wrote the preface to the paperback edition it was so, and he does not even mention it, despite the fact that it is at the very least having a large psychological effect on the high-tech job market.
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