(United States Department of Agriculture 2007)
The Creative Class is an encouraging, dynamic and open professional and personal milieu. In order to go beyond cultural uniformity and establish a successful Creative Class community in your city, regions should endeavour to effectively and efficiently use their capital for long-term success (Florida, 2002). Instead of injecting funds and scarce resources into new infrastructure development projects, such as shopping centres, roads and buildings, cities need to start attracting and retaining creative talent. By establishing a supportive, creative and dynamic environment it will draw other creative people, businesses and resources to regions (Florida, 2002).
Traditionally, communities formed geographically on a global, national, local and hyperlocal level. Communities have existed on multiple levels, with global culture highlighting the similarities and local culture highlighting our diversity. These days, in order to successfully find communities of interest, individuals generally have to pack up their belongings and relocate to cities with larger populations. Another way is to form online communities of interests.
The chapter extract ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’ taken from Florida’s book The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (2002) examines the shift away from the traditional industry-based economy to a more intricate economic hierarchy. It is a very informative and influential chapter, as the author is one of the best known theorists and researchers for his work of the Creative Class and its consequences on urban regeneration.
If you are motivated to establish a successful Creative Class in your region, Florida suggests attracting a high concentration of musicians, artists, writers, gay men, high-tech workers and bohemians, because these creative professionals correlate positively with higher economic development (2002). An interesting point to note is cultural memberships often overlap, but eventually resolve themselves to one primary culture. The work by the American urban studies theorist and professor has received both praise and criticism over the years from various academic figures. One example of this is Terry Nicholas Clarke, an individual who used his own research data to test and question whether Florida’s data was valid or void (Wikipedia, 2008).
How can we transform cities like Brisbane in Australia into a Creative Class? What additional measures need to be taken in order to successfully establish a city as a renowned Creative Class region? Can we act alone or do we need to work as a group towards the collective goal?
References
Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.florida.html (accessed 25 March 2008).
United States Department of Agriculture. 2007. Creative Class County Codes. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/CreativeClassCodes/creativemap.gif (accessed 5 April 2008).
Wikipedia. (2008). Richard Florida. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Florida (accessed 1 April 2008).
