A ten-point preparedness plan for our communities based on detailed tracking of the current pandemic and historical accounts of previous ones, presenting some key measures to prepare our cities, economy, and workers for the next phase of the coronavirus crisis and beyond.
Growing cities such as Hong Kong are at the epicenter of what Richard Florida has dubbed “the new urban crisis,” with the city’s success sending house prices soaring out of reach of the average resident. The author and urbanist, who is director of cities at the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto, spoke at the 2018 ULI Asia Pacific Summit in Hong Kong.
Elected officials and community leaders nationwide and those of Amazon HQ2 finalist cities support a non-aggression pact for Amazon’s HQ2 initiated by Richard Florida.
Amazon’s short list of contenders for its much ballyhooed HQ2 reads like a who’s who of the most economically vibrant and dynamic cities in North America. There’s one part of Amazon’s HQ2 competition that is deeply disturbing — pitting city against city in a wasteful and economically unproductive bidding war for tax and other incentives. As one of the world’s most valuable companies, Amazon does not need — and should not be going after — taxpayer dollars that could be better used on schools, parks, transit, housing or other much needed public goods.
As the world’s most economically powerful financial center and a budding hub for high-tech industry, New York City has grown increasingly segregated and unequal—particularly in areas surrounding new development. Now more than ever, the city has become a contested ground for space, spurring a local backlash among community members who can no longer afford to live where they are. With the current presidential administration and Republican majority on Capitol Hill unlikely to lend their support, New York must now turn to its local leaders, communities, and anchor institutions—universities, medical centers, real estate developers and large corporations—to mitigate this new urban crisis.
Toronto is a great city with many amazing things going for it. It’s time we make our streets safer for our people, especially the elderly and children who are at the highest risk.
A group of prominent Toronto scholars analyzed Jacobs’ ongoing impact a century after her birth. Hosted by the University of Toronto’s Innis College, the panel featured U of T’s Erica Allen Kim, Paul Hess, Michael Piper, Patricia O’Campo, and Richard Florida. Moderated by Urban Studies Chair Shauna Brail, the discussion looked at Jacobs’ contributions—and their limitations in the 21st century context—from a multidisciplinary and intersectional range of of perspectives.
Urban life has changed quite a lot since the onset of the Great Recession in 2008. The new “creative class,” comprising technology workers, scientists, architects, artists and writers, has been migrating from the suburbs to “superstar cities” including San Francisco, Boston and New York, according to Richard Florida, global research professor at the New York University School of Professional Studies. Florida headlined the Urban Lab panel organized by the NYU Schack Institute of Real Estate on Oct. 13.
“Gated suburb” isn’t exactly what springs to mind when you think of New York and its hectic avenues, blinding lights, and incredible diversity. But Richard Florida says the Big Apple is “tipping” in the direction of becoming one.
Richard Florida interview on the important role mayors play in building prosperous cities. He argued that the role of the mayor is critically misunderstood and underdeveloped, and that increasing the capacity of Canada’s local leaders is one of the most important social, political and economic imperatives of our time.
Richard Florida, the director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto and a professor of global research at New York University, writes in “The Rise of Global Startup Cities,” that while venture capital has “gone global” by spreading to places like China and India, the dominant centers remain US cities that combine density, great universities, and an open-minded culture to attract the best talent.
The prevalence of lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes is rising alarmingly in cities across the world. But the social factors driving this epidemic are complex and need our urgent attention, writes Richard Florida
To demonstrate its commitment to all these interwoven urban issues, it’s time for the government to create a new body – a “ministry of cities,” which would spearhead these interwoven initiatives while signalling to the world that this country is ready to lead the ongoing century of cities.
Cities are the fundamental drivers of entrepreneurial innovation and economic growth. So why does Ottawa insist on ignoring them?
The article marries Michael Porter’s industrial cluster theory of traded and local clusters to Richard Florida’
s occupational approach of creative and routine workers to gain a better understanding of the process of economic development. By combining these two approaches, four major industrial – occupational categories are identified.
In 2002, the American economist and sociologist Richard Florida published the book “The Rise of the Creative Class”, which became a bestseller. Florida made a close connection between the future development of cities and the development of the “creative class”: Cities will flourish if they are able to attract these rising stars of the 21st century and persuade them to be long-term residents.
The Globe and Mail has asked prominent urbanists, architects and scholars to tell us what things Canada’s mayors should be considering: the tools, policies and ideals that will build the city of the 21st century.
To explore what paths cities should forge in their 21st-century endeavors, The Brooklyn Quarterly‘s staffers and editors polled prominent experts on urban renewal, whose backgrounds range from public office to journalism to academia. We asked them: what one thing can change cities for the better in one generation? Their responses may foretell the future for many American cities.
In the interview with the Audi Urban Future Initiative Richard Florida talks about the future of cities and cars and outlines his ideal mobility scenario.
Just as our cities and urban centers are reviving, their growing class divisions threaten their further development in new and even more vexing ways.
Cities are not declining — many are even coming back. The past decade has witnessed an unforeseen rebirth in urban America, according to the newly released figures from the 2000 Census.
Vancouver is growing more divided as blue collar workers are priced out of the urban core, says author
The Martin Prosperity Institute, urban guru Richard Florida’s think tank, released a report full of maps offering a new lens to look at cities through. “The Divided City and the Shape of the New Metropolis” uses census data to highlight residential neighborhoods in U.S. by class.
San Francisco is one of the most innovative and creative places on the planet. But the very forces that are making San Francisco boom are also dividing it.
A new analysis from Richard Florida on how the creative class is dividing cities.
A new report released today by Richard Florida and the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, finds America’s cities and metro areas to be strikingly divided by class. The report, released to the City Lab Conference of Mayors and City Leaders in Los Angeles, maps the stark class divisions within 12 of America’s largest cities and metro areas. Americans, it finds, are not only separated by income and race, but by socio-economic class.
Knight Cities Challenge offers applicants a chance to share in $5 million by focusing on the question: “What’s your best idea to make cities more successful?” The contest will test the most innovative ideas in talent, opportunity and engagement in one or more of 26 Knight Foundation communities. Richard Florida writes about talent as a driver of city success.
A discussion at New York University titled “Onramps of Opportunity: Building a Creative + Inclusive New York,” the preeminent voice of the knowledge economy, Richard Florida, tackled this disconnect with an announcement of a new certificate course, the Initiative for Creativity and Innovation in Cities at the NYU School of Professional Studies.
America’s largest metro areas, which are currently gaining population at impressive rates, are driving much of the population growth across the nation. But that growth is the result of two very different migrations–one coming from the location choices of Americans themselves, the other shaped by where new immigrants from outside the US are heading.
Richard Florida had the honor of returning to his undergraduate alma mater, Rutgers University, to address the newly minted graduates of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, who will be some of the leaders of this epochal undertaking. He shared a few of his stories about Rutgers with them, and about the importance of finding your passion and forging your own course through life. He’d like to share them with you as well.
Opportunity for real estate’s early adopters: Cityscape looks at how high
tech entrepreneurship is likely to spur a wave of luxury residential and
commercial development in Florida’s popular beach destination.
The entrepreneurial economy: creative innovation as a by-product of an urban ecosystem.
This paper examines the geographic variation in wage inequality and income inequality across US metros. The findings indicate that the two are quite different. Wage inequality is closely associated with skills, human capital,technology and metro size, in line with the literature, but these factors are only weakly associated with income inequality. Furthermore, wage inequality explains only 15% of income inequality across metros. Income inequality is more closely associated
with unionization, race and poverty. No relationship is found between income inequality and average incomes and only a modest relationship between it and the percentage of high-income households.
Back for a second year, Start-Up City: Miami, presented by The Atlantic and The Atlantic Cities, will explore the national urban tech revolution and its impact on South Florida. The Miami Herald spoke with Florida last year about his views on building a tech hub here, and they decided to find out how he thinks Miami is doing now. They also wanted to get the lowdown on Start-Up City (Version 2.0).
Richard Florida, spoke at Populus 2014 Friday at the State Theatre in Downtown Kalamazoo. Populus is a one-day event focused on helping change policy making and decision making in communities.
Rapidly growing Asia will be better served by a system of cities – not a
dominant city, but many competitive cities.
High tech startups are taking an urban turn. This is a new development. While large urban centers have historically been sources of venture capital, the high tech startups they funded were mainly, if not exclusively, located in suburban campuses in California’s Silicon Valley, Boston’s Route 128 corridor, the Research Triangle of North Carolina, and in the suburbs of Austin and Seattle. But high tech development, startup activity, and venture investment have recently begun to shift to urban centers and also to close-in, mixed-use, transit-oriented walkable suburbs. This report, which is based on unique data from the National Venture Capital Association, Thompson Reuters and Dow Jones, examines this emergent urban shift in high tech startup activity and venture capital investment.
The academic and author explains how creative companies and the venture capital that drives them are increasingly flowing to cities, and what that means for economic and societal development.
What are the most important buildings, products, or events of 2013 that have ramifications for the future?
For most of history, people lived in the same locations from birth until death; their lives revolved around their large extended families. Nowadays, Americans are much less likely to stay put for life – just as it’s less likely that they will have one job for life. In Jane Jacobs’s words, they are “federations of neighborhoods,” where virtually everyone, no matter their age, ethnicity, religion, level of education, sexual orientation or income, can find a niche where they feel welcome and comfortable.
America’s landscape has changed in fundamental ways, with powerful implications for its politics.
Cities are playing a greater role than expected in corporate innovation. Even as technology has enabled a more mobile workforce to find more bucolic settings, the workers most responsible for this kind of development are choosing to live and work in densely populated places such as New York and San Francisco.
Tech startups—and the venture capital on which they thrive—are breaking out of their suburban mold.
To kick off The Atlantic’s new special report on the past and future of the world’s global capitals, we begin with a survey of the surveys to answer that universal question: What city rules them all?
Richard Florida believes central Scotland has what it takes to be one of the world’s 40 or so mega-regions. It’s got the population density, income generation, skills, universities and creativity. What it also needs is a modern, fast rail network. The 20th century city sprawled with the motorcar, so further expansion will require high-speed trains.
New York, Houston, Washington, D.C.—plus college towns and the energy belt—are all up, while much of the Sun Belt is (still) down. Mapping the winners and losers since the crash.
Creativity is at once our most precious resource and our most inexhaustible one. As anyone who has ever spent any time with children knows, every single human being is born creative; every human being is innately endowed with the ability to combine and recombine data, perceptions, materials and ideas, and devise new ways of thinking and doing. Cities are the true fonts of creativity.
Twenty-five years ago, Pittsburgh hosted the Remaking Cities Conference, an international gathering of architects, visionaries and dignitaries, including England’s Prince Charles, the honorary co-host and keynote speaker. This year, Oct. 15-–18, 2013, Carnegie Mellon University will host the Remaking Cities Congress, with 300 invited urbanists and thought leaders who will again focus on the post-industrial city in North America and Europe. In that context, they have asked 10 thought leaders to assess the Pittsburgh region’s strengths and weaknesses and to consider what they would like to see in the Pittsburgh of the future. The package begins with a foreword from noted urbanist Richard Florida.
Considering the importance of immigration reform and the high emotions roused by the Boston bombing, it’s important to look at what we actually know about the connections (or the lack thereof) between immigration, crime and American cities.
Richard Florida heralds successful cities as those that attract and keep a creative citizenry. Toronto is a perfect
manifestation of his “Three T’s” index of good city building: technology,
tolerance, and talent. Author Katrina Onstad takes a closer look at how the Three T’s of Toronto play out on the
streets, so invites five local “creative class” guides to show her the
neighborhoods they love.
The debate over a casino in downtown Toronto is coming to a head. When all is said and done, gambling is one of the most regressive ways to generate public revenue and one of the least productive uses of money imaginable.
The nascent turnround in Detroit offers a model from which other cities can learn, writes Richard Florida
A look at the key for cities and communities figuring out what they do best as part of the bigger system of metros and mega-regions in their part of the world.
Start-Up City: Miami, a conference looking at how Miami can become a nebula for technology start-ups is taking place the New World Center on Miami Beach.
While governments try triggering growth through stimulus spending and/or tax cutting, Florida said what’s going to get us out of the current economic “crisis” are cities “restructuring the way we live and work.” He calls it a “geographic fix,” in which the highly mobile creative types are drawn to the urban areas they love by the types of amenities offered, by public and park gathering spaces and by a community’s walkability.
A day-long forum, Start-Up City: Miami led by Richard Florida explored ways to build an innovation hub in South Florida.
Organized by influential urbanist and author Richard Florida, Start-Up City: Miami will feature talks by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and AOL co-founder Steve Case on Wednesday, Feb. 13.
Richard Florida on NPR with Steve Inskeep discussing who wins and who loses as the highly skilled, creative class clusters around certain metro areas.
For Prof Florida, Abu Dhabi’s future economic success will be determined not by the efforts that it has made thus far, although he admits these have provided an essential foundation, but by its success in attracting and retaining members of an increasingly global and internationally mobile group of knowledge-based workers he has dubbed the “Creative Class”.
A “Great Reset”—the structural change following crisis—is underway. And there are some indicators of how metropolitan areas are evolving through a time of historic upheaval.
Richard Florida discusses President Obama’s ambitious proposal for the his second term: Create a new federal Department of Cities.
The Atlantic will launch Start-up City: Miami, the inaugural event in a new series of day-long programs exploring the emerging models of “urban tech” taking root in cities around the world. The free event is produced in partnership with the Creative Class Group and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Thomas Frey shares eight shocking statements made in 2012, judged to be trend-setters for 2013 and beyond and discusses briefly how they will invariably shift our outlook on the future.
As one of the world’s richest cities, New York has an obligation not just to rebuild but to show the world how to rebuild the right way — smarter, greener, more resilient than ever. New York is the very definition of resilience. It has absorbed several body blows in the past decade and bounced right back — the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the financial collapse of 2008 and now Hurricane Sandy.
Uurbanization leaders are rising to prominence across the spheres of real estate, technology, and sustainability.
As populations rise and the pressure for limited resources increases, smart thinking is needed — in the form of smart cities, which harness technology to fight the challenges of urbanism, whilst maximising its creative and economic potential. UBM identifies the the Top 20 individuals around the globe who are at the forefront of this movement, Richard Florida as number 1.
High-tech industries have flourished in the suburban office parks that are so ubiquitous in Silicon Valley, North Carolina’s Research Triangle and other “nerdistans.” But in recent years, high-tech has been taking a decidedly urban turn. Drawn by amenities and talent, tech firms are opting for cities.
Richard Florida, father of the ‘creative class’ concept, finds one at work in his new part-time hometown of Miami, Florida.
Over the next 50 years we will spend trillions of dollars on city building. The question is: How should we build? For many economists, urbanists and developers, the answer is simple: We should build up. But the answer is more complex than that.
This post is part of a new special section called “Reinventing America.” As part of this effort, Micheline Maynard and more than a dozen other Forbes contributors and staff writers focus attention on the challenges facing towns, cities and traditional industries across the nation–and highlight the growing number of surprising success stories. Richard Florida, the author of The Rise of The Creative Class, recently looked at where these knowledge-focused jobs are for a new version of his book, The Rise of The Creative Class, Revised.
Excerpted with permission from The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited: 10th Anniversary Edition, by Richard Florida. The tectonic upheavals our economy is enduring are the result not just of financial shenanigans by the global One Percent, but of a deeper and more fundamental shift — the passing of the old industrial order as it gives way to the emerging Creative Economy. If we wish to build lasting prosperity we cannot rely on market forces and the Invisible Hand alone to guide us. The grand challenge of our time is to invent new institutional structures that will guide the emergence of a new economic order, while channeling its energies in ways that benefit society as a whole.
Richard Florida on how to help lower-income New Yorkers climb the city’s increasingly slippery economic ladder. Behind New York’s encouraging news is a troubling trend: Huge numbers of middle and especially lower income
people continue to struggle. To complete its transition, New York must develop strategies that enable many more of its workers to benefit from the ongoing transformation of its economy.
In this newest installment of our Creative Spaces series, we have scoured scoured the world for playgrounds old and new, large and small with a visit to any one of them leaving you feeling rejuvenated and refreshed.
In this newest installment of our Creative Spaces series, we have scoured the streets of cities in North America and the UK to bring you the most compelling graffiti projects we could find.
In this newest installment of our Creative Spaces series, we have assembled a slideshow of memorable parking garages from all over the world.
Interview with Richard Florida on how do cities develop resilient economic systems that don’t crash and leave them in the messes they have in the past? Is it possible to plan an urban economy that can easily adapt to constant change?
In this newest installment of our Creative Spaces series, we have assembled a slideshow of the world’s top 10 creative restaurant spaces, places that highlight creativity, art, design, sustainability, and the surrounding landscape.
Richard Florida’s column in the Business Insider discussing our most important resource which is us – the creative potential that is in every human being.For perhaps the first time in human history, the further progress of our economy is inextricably tied up with the further development of our essential humanity.
In this newest installment of our Creative Spaces series, in honor of Super Bowl XLVI, we have assembled a slideshow to highlight stadiums from around the world — places that celebrate and highlight creativity and add real curb appeal to their neighborhoods.
In this newest installment of our Creative Spaces series, we have assembled a slideshow to highlight some of the brave new offices that celebrate and enable creativity, through design, artwork, and architecture. These spaces aren’t necessarily high style — but all of them promote transparency, flexibility and cater to the new ways of working.
In this newest installment of our Creative Spaces series, we have assembled a slideshow to celebrate and congratulate those pioneers, some of whom we’ve worked with at CCG, who are envisioning and actualizing new ways of living and working.
Richard Florida’s “The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent” is a thought-provoking book says Melih Arat.
Florida discusses global competition, which was once a contest between countries, and now belongs to cities. In today’s world cities are in competition in terms innovation and creativity.
Rana Florida’s series, Creative Spaces, which started out with homes, has expanded to cities with this edition featuring some of most inspired repurposed buildings we’ve seen, in Maastricht and elsewhere.
Rana Florida’s series, Creative Spaces, which started out with homes, has expanded to cities with this first edition highlighting some of Miami’s most creative and imaginative public art displays and spaces.
Richard Florida’s “Who’s Your City?” is a cool book that takes a look at the impact of where you live on your professional and social opportunities. Florida conducted research to understand what places attract entrepreneurial minds, how they do it, and its affect on the regions these places inhabit. He also takes a look at what cities represent the best opportunities to find a mate, start a family, be an empty nester, and retire.
The deepening social and economic divisions that are all too apparent in London are becoming evident in our own cities as well. Richard Florida argues that there is a real danger that riots like London’s will become a feature, not a mere bug, of global cities.
Richard Florida says that many of the nation’s urban areas are booming with new restaurants, parks and condos. All these areas are great to visit, he says, offering a slice of local urban life. He shares up-and-coming neighborhoods with Larry Bleiberg for USA TODAY.
London’s riots prompted commentators on the right to blame hooliganism, while those on the left cited frustrations with the UK’s faltering economy and fiscal austerity. But the causes run deeper and are linked fundamentally to the changing structure of the world’s economy. They are problems many of our global cities will soon face.
US crime levels have fallen to their lowest reported levels in nearly half a century despite major unemployment and the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Even more remarkably, the drop was steepest in America’s big cities – which are still popularly believed to be cauldrons of criminality. The question is: why?
Smaller cities and towns are remaking themselves as hubs for the knowledge economy.Richard Florida points out some surprising destinations from the data of the Martin Prosperity Institute.
National Geographic Traveler interview with Richard Florida. Florida says society’s success is inextricably bound to the success of our great cities. And yet, the growing concentration of
wealth and human capital in urban areas is leading to greater inequality, with a person’s prosperity determined
increasingly by location. Florida explores social and economic trends in his numerous books.
Urban planning expert Richard Florida says the planning to make Toronto a world-class city in the same league as Paris or New York in the next 50 years must start now.
Richard Florida, a best-selling author and economic development theorist, says South Florida needs to diversify economically, focus on education and deal with sprawl if it wants to move forward.
Outlining his plan to create a rival to Silicon Valley in the East End of London on November 4th, Mr Cameron paid tribute to Richard Florida, an American urban economist, for devising a blueprint for government’s role in the economy.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Richard Florida examines the changing demographics of cities. Florida’s article points out that many of the cities we have typically called suburbs are transforming themselves from sprawling, car-centric and far-flung places into compact, transit-oriented, and walkable communities.
Remaking our sprawling suburbs, with their enormous footprints, shoddy construction, hastily put up infrastructure, and dying malls, is shaping up to be the biggest urban revitalization challenge of modern times—far larger in scale, scope and cost than the revitalization of our inner cities.
Entrepreneurial communities grow up around smart people. Richard Florida, one of the most thoughtful writers and thinkers about entrepreneurial communities, recently identified Boulder as the “brainiest city in the US.”
Where do the biggest brainiacs in America live? Richard Florida crunches the numbers to figure out the smartest cities in the country.
Wondering where the jobs of the future are going to be? Richard Florida crunched the numbers to create a list of the American cities with the fastest-growing job markets, from New York to Durham to Bethesda.
Drawing on data from the Brookings Institution, urban studies guru Richard Florida, author of “The Rise of the Creative Class,” collaborated with colleague Charlotta Mellander and their team at Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute to come up with the analysis, which put Austin at No. 10 among the cities with the most brainpower.
Which cities have the most immigrants and foreign born citizens in America? Richard Florida and his team crunch the numbers to come up with a surprising list and explore why these cities benefit from high immigrant populations.
Wondering where you earn the highest incomes? Richard Florida and his team have put together the definitive list of American’s 20 highest earning cities.
Richard Florida shares his views on what needs to happen if cities are to succeed.
The American College of Sports Medicine has just released the latest version of the American Fitness Index, which ranks the health and fitness levels of America’s fifty largest cities.
Richard Florida, the well-known economist and urban theorist, says the Capital Region of Albany is one of the top 25 areas for the young and ambitious.
Tallahassee has landed as No. 15 in a listing of the 25 Best Cities for College Grads that was reported by Richard Florida, a frequent visitor to the city and an inspiration behind the Knight Creative Communities Institute (KCCI) that is at work improving the vitality of life in the community.
The news and opinion site TheDailyBeast.com has ranked Albany #23 on its list of 25 best cities for college graduates based on a list by Richard Florida who said he and his team analyzed a Gallup survey of 28,000 Americans in their twenties to figure out the key draws for them in a location after they graduate college.
The Class of 2010 is heading into the real world but where should they live? Urban guru Richard Florida and his team find the best cities for the young and ambitious.
By Robert Burchell, James Carr, Richard Florida, and James Nemeth, Center for Urban Policy Research – 1984
Richard Florida (editor), New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research – 1986
Feature piece on Omaha, NE includes an interview with Richard Florida – April 2007
By Richard Florida, A report prepared for the Regional Plan Association and the Civic Alliance – April 2002
By Terry Holzheimer and Lauren Hodgin, Arlington Economic Development – Jan 2005
