What does City-Data think of Richard Florida? (map, metro, suburban)
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I read his book "Who is your City?" Which basically runs of demographic data in certain regions and what not. I didn't hate it but I was maybe hoping for a little more. With him being an urbanist I'm really interested in some of the things he covers but when you hear him speak or write, he just doesn't give you a lot on the why? I want to know A to B to C and a lot of it seems like he dances around issues. For example he just doesn't seem to want to touch the gentrification issue at all.
He seems to be a super far left dude, qouting Carl Marx and is suspect of capitalism. Capitalism is kind of the thing that built these cities in the first place no? lol I don't know he's so universally praised am I missing something here? What do you guys think for those that know his work?
I'm not city data as a whole, but as someone who had to read some of his writings (Rise of The Creative Class) for an advanced degree years ago, I didn't find his work very substantive nor looking at sustainable holistic model of a city.
He stressed the "creative class" being this new end all be all to new growth. It doesn't take into account the vast majority of people (IMO) are not creative as they are products of an educational system that is designed to make them happy consumption units.
Ergo he should focus on educational change. Also in grad school I brought up once with a guest speaker (major national developer) the simple point that the very people he talks up as being the apex of new economic might, tend not to reproduce, when developer was using the Richard Florida 'Creative Class' as this new way to "grow" stagnant cities. So he's de facto advocating for a mass reduction thus less need for any city. It mostly was used (IMO) as a marketing tool to get people to relocate to "cool" places.
We can't all be artists, designers, etc... there is still a need for a broad mix of people of various skills and aptitudes to make what is a city continue as a viable commercial center. Now obviously the intellect or an educated workforce (STEM) is a powerful aggregator of economic power - if it stays in a region. But it seemed like most of the emphasis was on marketing a place as where the "hip" creative crowd lived.
You have a point in he avoids the gentrification issue (unless he has addressed it in more recent studies) and seems to think (from my perception) that if only we had ideal urban settings people would seemingly behave better. While there is some studies that show the benefits of well designed cities having certain beneficial aspects he never (to my knowledge) did studies of the opposite.
For instance, when all new construction was made for those of lower socioeconomic standing via government programs such as Hope 6 - We had some Hope 6 funds used in our urban metro - if you visit them 10 years later the residue of the occupants bad behaviors are reflected in the built environment.
I have no recollection of Florida talking about Marx / Capitalism but I wouldn't be surprised if that has crept in to his work to keep himself getting funding for studies from foundations and think tanks who like to drive narratives on urban redevelopment.
He was the herald of the "back to the city" movement, which was only real in 2009 and 2010. That was because so many people lost their homes or couldn't get mortgages they had to go back to being renters. It wasn't due to a sea change in preferences.
Since 2010, the traditional model of most growth being single-family homes at the suburban edge has continued. I also consider Florida tone-deaf but more importantly one of the ideas he is most known for is not empirically true.
I'm not city data as a whole, but as someone who had to read some of his writings (Rise of The Creative Class) for an advanced degree years ago, I didn't find his work very substantive nor looking at sustainable holistic model of a city.
He stressed the "creative class" being this new end all be all to new growth. It doesn't take into account the vast majority of people (IMO) are not creative as they are products of an educational system that is designed to make them happy consumption units.
A few years back, when he was still running the site that was then called The Atlantic Cities and is now called Bloomberg CityLab (the CityLab name change and Florida's stepping down as its editor-in-chief both predate the sale of the site to Bloomberg), Florida did a series of articles accompanied by maps showing the spatial nature of inequality in our large metropolitan areas.
The maps were color-coded to show where the "creative class," "service class" and "working class" people lived.
When I saw the map for Greater Philadelphia and noticed that the biggest swath of "creative class" territory was out on the Main Line, I reached the conclusion that this "creative class" stuff was actually a way to make middle management and corporate CEOs feel good about themselves.
He's out of touch, and I'm using the polite term. His writings advocate for gentrification of cities with hipsters vs. actual investment in the infrastructure, implementation of improved community programs and attracting companies to economically distressed areas. His idea of "fixing" cities is to draw monied hipsters to them and create a culture based on creatives and cafes. That's all well and good for the already prosperous residents but what about the ones who are middle or working class?
I can't stand him. Gentrification advocates make me ill.
He's out of touch, and I'm using the polite term. His writings advocate for gentrification of cities with hipsters vs. actual investment in the infrastructure, implementation of improved community programs and attracting companies to economically distressed areas. His idea of "fixing" cities is to draw monied hipsters to them and create a culture based on creatives and cafes. That's all well and good for the already prosperous residents but what about the ones who are middle or working class?
I can't stand him. Gentrification advocates make me ill.
Even more importantly, Florida's ideas are all childless ones. They DO work well in a "college neighborhood" where there is a new crop of students every year, and in places where singles go to mingle. Or they work in places where people are not generally going to have kids (e.g., the "Gay Grottos"), or are elderly and are thus through with them.
But for people in their prime raising children, Florida's ideas have nothing for them.
When I hear the term "creative class," I think of people like the affable folks on Friends, who spend their days hanging out and chatting and being witty and all that . . . but never actually working, it seems. A city populated by the creative class, in the terms that I understand it, would be a pleasant place to visit. But if no one actually works for a living, how can the economy of the city be sustained?
I don't know if that's who Richard Florida meant when he advocated that cities be made more welcoming to this class of people, but that's who I always picture when I read stuff about him and his cheerleading for this group. To me, it seems that a city's energies would be better focused trying to attract actual producers, not a gaggle of nice-looking layabouts.
There was a podcast I listened to recently about a new community trying to take hold on the outskirts of DT Las Vegas. Catering to the creative class and I believe they interviewed Richard. The developer was trying to prime the pump with a bunch of seed $$.
The kicker was, and something I agreed with, was someone who summed it up like this:
In one incubator stall you have the soy candle maker, and next to him you have the organic cotton weaver, and next to her you have the social media app developer and so on and so on. All people who do zero business with each other.
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