The proposed ‘new media’ Ignition Festival being planned for Noosa early next year, could spawn the first creative company to come out of the Noosa Creative Alliance project being mentored by well-known international academic Richard Florida.
Florida’s public policy-makers must recognize that mega-regions are the engines of the newglobal economy. They must support Florida’s mega — the 15th largest in the world.
In recent years, Florida has carved a niche for himself raising the class consciousness of graphic designers, software engineers, research scientists, business entrepreneurs, writers and academics and assorted other people involved in intellectual forms of work.
Florida argues that where you lives affects everything from how much money you make to how happy you are.
Florida points to growth and economic dominance of “mega-regions” as his premise and notes in his book’s sub-title that “the creative economy is making where to live the most important decision of your life.”
The success of a city depends as much on its ‘personality’ as other contributing factors.
New Hampshire and Maine — from Portland south — are considered the “northern edge” of the 500-mile Boston-Washington, D.C., corridor that Richard Florida, author and professor at the University of Toronto’s Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, has found generates $2.2 trillion in economic activity.
Florida’s main premise in Who’s Your City? is that the world is, in fact, “spiky,” and people make very deliberate decisions about where they live based upon a number of factors.
One of the most interesting and relevant aspects of Who’s Your City? is the interdisciplinary nature of Richard Florida’s research.
For generations of suburban kids raised in traffic, mixed-use and mass transit will define the future.
Globalization and technology have created new options of working from anywhere, but that hasn’t de-emphasized the importance of where a worker lives. Arguably, place is becoming more important.
Reprinted and/or posted with the permission of Daily Journal Corp. (2008)
In Who’s Your City? Richard Florida explains why happiness and the place you live are intrinsically linked.
Throughout and since his successful campaign for Lexington mayor, Jim Newberry has cited the writings of urban studies theorist Richard Florida, whose best-selling Rise of the Creative Class has contributed to a surge of urban revitalization efforts from coast to coast.
Perhaps the most influential in terms of its impact on modern urban planning is US academic Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class, first published in 2002.
We assume in an age of globalization that it doesn’t matter where you live: Technology allows us to do our jobs from home, be it on a tropical beach or in a rural community. Best-selling author and urbanologist Richard Florida disagrees.
Richard Florida suggests that the big sort poses huge implications for US economic competitiveness and a wide range of domestic economic and social issues.
A popular economic development guru believes that a region’s tolerance and diversity, its quality of life and its support for what he describes as the “creative class” pave the way for economic and population growth. According to Richard Florida: “The distinguishing characteristic of the creative class is that its members engage in work whose function is to ‘create meaningful new forms.’ “
… but not for the reasons you think. One of the few things increasing as fast as the price of oil lately has been the amount of commentary linking higher energy costs to the death of suburbia. Clearly, higher gas prices have affected where people want – or can afford – to live. Just as the demand for SUVs plummets and consumers have finally begun to see the point of hybrids, people are turning away from sprawling exurbs toward urban neighbourhoods and inner suburbs.
Florida finds that communities with large number of gays and lesbians and artists project an image of tolerance, openness and diversity which attracts creative people of all types. Where there is a large talent pool of such people, business thrives.
Bestselling author, academic, and prominent public intellectual Richard Florida talks to Joseph Planta about his latest book, Who’s Your City? How the Creative Economy is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life (Random House, 2008).
For the first time ever, says author and Toronto University’s Business and Creativity Professor Richard Florida, many of us have the freedom and economic means to choose our place — and the opportunity to find the place that fits us best is even more important than choosing a career or even a spouse.
Florida offers the premise that most people do not put nearly the same amount of effort in choosing where they want to live as they do in choosing a spouse and choosing a career, but that location seems to be more predictive of our all-round personal happiness.
Cities inevitably, consistently, and dispiritingly punch below their weight politically. City-dwellers, as such, have almost no say in national politics, and invariably end up subsidizing the increasingly-anachronistic lifestyles of their rural compatriots.
A Sustainable Streets program will be launched in Peregian June 28 with the Green Sunshine project rallying participants for the Living Smart Homes Program.
The producers of the Creative Cities Summit 2.0 (CCS2) announced the participation of Dr. Richard Florida as a special lunch keynote speaker for Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Richard Florida inspired Noosa Creative Alliance Catalyst program is making headway with plans to promote creative industries across the Sunshine Coast.
Ken Gray examines how Ottawa performs on urban critic Richard Florida’s guide to choosing your home
Richard Florida on NPR says many of us have the freedom and economic means to choose our place — and the opportunity to find the place that fits us best is even more important than choosing a career or even a spouse.
“Who’s Your City” is about the places we choose to live and about how we have considerable opportunity to think strategically about this life decision.
What matters now is quality of place, defined as the intersection of three key elements of our cities: what’s there, who’s there and what’s going on.
A mega-region needs to think and act like a mega-region, not like a bunch of separate cities with empty space between them.
According to American sociologist Richard Florida, it was the “creative class” that swung victory for Barack Obama in the recent US Democratic nominations.
Richard Florida in Vancouver speaking at the Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Richard Florida says Vancouver is poised to become one of the creative cities of the world.
Author Richard Florida argues that for people in creative fields, it’s important to live near each other in order to spark innovation and drive regional economies.
Writing about the rise of regions as economic powerhouses, Florida outlined the essence of what has made some regions prosperous, while others have languished behind. It comes down to attracting and keeping those who are creative and those who are willing to take risks.
Greenlight Greater Portland, a privately funded economic development group, issued a “prosperity index” today that compared the metro area with nine other western cities and touted its robust economic prospects during the next five years.
Florida comes to Portland to help launch Greenlight Greater Portland, a new regional economic development initiative.
Florida addresses group of 500 Portland area business and government leaders gathering to discuss a regional economic report issued by Greenlight Greater Portland.
Richard Florida took on Thomas Friedman and challenged his notion that the world is flat – suggesting instead that it is “spiky” by pointing out that the real economic activity happens within cities, not countries and that it DOES matter where you live even though technology has seemingly made it easier to do business anywhere.
“We are the creative hub of Tallahassee where visual artists, performance artists, small businesses and entrepreneurs can find a place to showcase their work in an 18-hour downtown environment,” Costigan said of Gaines Street.
Fareed Zakaria: The end result will be a “landscape that is quite different from the one we have lived in until now – one defined and directed from many places and by many peoples.”
“…we are experiencing modern history’s third great power shift, after the rise of the West from the 15th century on and then the rise of the U.S. in the 19th century.”
Leaders exploring new approaches to everything from education, crime and smoking bans to environment and climate change – even bringing modern management techniques to government. Their efforts and those of their peers have made their jurisdictions safer, smarter, greener, more aesthetic, more efficient, wealthier and more globally competitive.
Richard Florida, international best-selling author of Who’s Your City and The Rise of the Creative Class will address 500 business and community leaders on Wednesday, June 4, at the Portland Art Museum.
Florida maintains that where you decide to live has far-reaching consequences, and as the title suggests, this decision may be the most important one that you ever make.
Suspecting that happiness might be impacted by psychological as well as the economic and sociological factors he had been studying for years, Richard Florida in his newest book, Who’s Your City, explores this connection between personality and where we live.
”The Creativity index appeared to be one of the best metrics to understand sales performance at Cirque. And correlation are strong, therefor we will be now using this metric to anticipate sales performance and better forecast.
Alexandre AlleMarket Insight Advisor, Cirque du Soleil
