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Struggling with the Creative Class

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Struggling with the Creative Class

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.,

5 min read
5 take-aways
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What's inside?

Around the world, civic leaders are fighting to attract and retain the emerging “creative class.”

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Editorial Rating

7

Recommendation

Around the world, civic leaders are fighting to attract and retain creative people. Never before has human creativity been considered so valuable for economic growth, making creative people an emerging, elitist group in society. In this paper, geography professor Jamie Peck analyzes urban-studies theorist Richard Florida’s thesis that the people who make up the “creative class” are the new “primary drivers of economic development” and that cities should do all they can to attract them. getAbstract recommends this comprehensive, though somewhat verbose, discussion to town planners, civic leaders, creative people, and anyone interested in current urban trends and development.

Summary

Urban-studies theorist Richard Florida has identified a new socioeconomic class – “the creative class” – as the driving force of today’s economic development. If his observation is correct, then its implications are clear: Cities have to attract and maintain the creative class or face economic demise. Now, cities worldwide are desperately seeking ways to draw in these valuable “creatives.”

The creative class has always existed, but today it is larger and more influential than ever before: In the United States alone, it constitutes approximately 30% of the workforce. The ...

About the Author

Jamie Peck is Canada research chair in urban and regional political economy and a geography professor at the University of British Columbia.

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