The Rise of the Creative Class
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about the book
Florida’s first national bestseller received the Washington Monthly’s Political Book Award and was cited as a major breakthrough idea of 2004 by the Harvard Business Review. Toronto’s Globe and Mail called it “an intellectual tour de force, scholarly yet colorfully written,” and its ideas have been implemented and called on for inspiration in communities and cities across the United States and the world.
Rise, as it has been appropriately re-dubbed in the popular lexicon, looks at the forces reshaping our economy and how companies, communities and people can survive and prosper in uncertain times. It gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today – and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with reams of cutting-edge research, Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.
Just as William Whyte’s 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have. Our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing.
Leading this transformation are the 40 million Americans – over a third of our national workforce – who create for a living. This “creative class” is found in a variety of fields, from engineering to theater, biotech to education, architecture to small business. Their choices have already had a huge economic impact. In the future, they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.
awards
praise
“Best Business Book of All Time”
2009- CEO Read
“Must Read for Management Revolutionaries”
December 9, 2008— Wall Street Journal, Author, Competing for the Future and visiting professor
London Business School“Richard Florida's ‘RISE OF THE CREATIVE CLASS’ ... is an important book for those who feel passionately about the future of the urban center. In fact, Florida virtually defines us.... [H]e has outlined the identity of the contemporary city's core population. Just by daring to use the word class, he's changed the framework for discussing social and economic inequality.”
— Herbert Muschamp
New York Times, Year in Review“A powerful, insightful book that reveals the core of regional advantage in the knowledge economy. Never before have I seen anyone capture so succinctly the values and desires of the new 'creative class' and the essence of human capital and the creative ethos. This is a book you will read cover to cover and feel enlightened by every chapter.”
— John Seely Brown
Former Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
and co-author of The Social Life of Information“The Rise of the Creative Class is an insightful portrait of the values and lifestyles that will drive the 21st century economy, its technologies and social structures. To understand how scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other self-motivated, creative people are challenging the traditional structures of the 20th century society, read this book. It will convince you that success in the future is not about technology, government, management or even power; it is all about people and their dynamic and emergent patterns of relationships.”
— Lewis M. Branscomb
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University“Few people provide greater clarity on the importance of place in the knowledge-driven economy than Richard Florida. The Rise of the Creative Class provides critical insights in how we can build 21st-century cities and regions around the emerging economy.”
— Robert D. Yaro
President, Regional Plan Association, New York“Florida's book leaves the reader not just with some interesting ideas but with a new perspective for understanding our culture... Well worth reading if you're seeking a greater understanding of the sociological and economic changes taking place in our culture today... interesting, provocative, and smart.”
— The Boston Globe
“Prof. Florida's book is an intellectual tour de force, scholarly yet colorfully written, with interest to members of the creative class.”
— Globe and Mail (Canada's leading newspaper)
“... attracting the type of attention usually garnered by salacious fiction or celebrity tell-alls, from packed readings to a rapid ascent up Amazon's bestseller list. ... Public policy and regional development books are often considered best as a cure for insomnia, but Florida's work is challenging many of the verities of the field.”
— Salon.com
“The creative-capital theory turned out - at least after preliminary testing - to provide the best explanation for Austin's high-tech transformation.”
— New York Times
“A vibrant and fast-paced romp... Florida's research and experiences over the past decade have given him the foundation on which to build a new view of business reality...”
—InformationWeek
“... a pioneering cartographer of talent.”
— Fast Company
“A smart and interesting book that takes a well-known cultural phenomeno...the critical massing of technology and creative workers of talent in certain cities...and mixes in some new elements about why they cohere”
— AlterNet
“The Rise of the Creative Class... should be must reading for everyone...particularly elected officials, senior business executives and economic development specialists.”
— Gulf Coast Business Review
“...a stunningly original and intriguing book...”
— Entrepreneuership and Innovation
“An exhaustive study that ought to be read by every city planner and economic developer who wants to thrive in the next century... It tells us a lot about ourselves, where we've been and where we are going.”
— Shreveport Times
“A smart and interesting book...”
— AlterNet
“Florida draws a vivid picture of what it takes to make a great 21st-century city.”
— Denver Post
“Cuts to the core what mindsets and skills are necessary to professionally and socially make one's way in the 21st century...”
— O'Dyer's PR Daily
“Florida's work is thorough, compelling and worth reading...”
— The Citizen's Weekly Reading
“The new way of thinking is: the more music you have, the more art, the preserved downtown--the more creative the influence is on where you live.'”
— Actress, Cybill Shepard on The Rise of the Creative Class
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