Is The Creative Class Theory Flawed?

Critics are increasingly charging that Richard Florida's theories about the creative class simply don't work.

1 minute read

March 2, 2004, 7:00 AM PST

By Chris Steins @planetizen


"...An anti-Florida tsunami is gaining momentum. A growing number of urban-policy commentators question his advice: 'The basic economics behind [Florida's] ideas don't work,' writes Steven Malanga in the Winter 2004 issue of the conservative City Journal. And in the latest issue of the waggish leftist journal the Baffler, based in Chicago, writer Paul Maliszewski calls Florida's city-revitalization theory 'so wrong and backward that it reads like satire.' Florida has 'mistaken the side effects of a booming economy,' he writes, 'for the causes of growth.' After all, 'Potemkin bohemias' are not going to get old steel cities humming again."

Thanks to Chris Steins

Sunday, February 29, 2004 in The Boston Globe

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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