Cities and the Creative Class by: Richard Florida

With the shift from manufacturing to “creative” industries, a new creative age is increasingly becoming a defining aspect of securing a nation’s economic growth. According to Richard Florida, human creativity is now the “decisive source of competitive advantage” and cities can thrive by tapping and harnessing the young, mobile, and talented individuals known as the “creative class” (Florida, 2003). Florida particularly outlines how certain cities are able to attract these innovative and talented individuals. He argues that cities that succeed have three main ingredients: technology, talent and tolerance (Florida, 2003). To prove his point, Florida uses information of both thriving and failing cities, showing their contrasting features. He examines San Francisco Bay area, Boston, Washington, Austin and Seattle’s openness and bohemia as magnets for the young, highly-talented creative class while criticizes Baltimore, St. Louis and Pittsburgh for their unwillingness to be sufficiently tolerant and open-minded, therefore unable to attract top creative talent. Richard Florida argues that the creative class look for “communities with abundant high-quality experiences, an openness to diversity of all kinds, and above all else, the opportunity to validate their identities as creative people” (Florida, 2003). These people, in turn, create economic growth and innovation.
Although Florida was successful in selling the idea of a “creative class,” this is hardly news. Florida was simply describing the “human capital theory,” which states that the amount of highly-educated people in an area is what drives economic growth. Florida argues, however, that his theory differs from the human capital theory as “(1) it identifies a type of human capital, creative people, as key to economic growth and (2) it identifies the underlying factors that shape the location decisions of these people” (Florida, 2003). However, the creative people that Florida is describing are, for the most