Profiles and Interviews

Richard Florida, PhD, came to Philadelphia for an up-close and personal look at how our city’s revival is reaching a tipping point, a “new urban crisis” brought on by success. Florida, one of the world’s leading scholars and observers of cities, is university professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management, a distinguished fellow at NYU, and founder of CityLab. He is author of the best sellers The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis. MIT Technology Review named him one of the world’s most influential thinkers.

Charles Kenny, author of a forthcoming book on pandemics, is cautiously optimistic that cities will prevail in the era of COVID-19. Here, he talks to Richard Florida about how infectious diseases have shaped cities throughout history, how COVID-19 could impact urbanization, and why preparedness is everything.

If a person’s home is their castle, then the 59 people we chose to profile for our 2018 Residential Real Estate Power List are the castle-builders, the castle-keepers, the castle-owners—in short, the most influential and powerful people currently shaping the U.S. residential real estate industry.

Richard Florida is an author, urbanist, and the current Director of Cities at the University of Toronto’s Martin Prosperity Institute. We spoke with him about how Canadian cities can evolve and prepare for the future through P3s.

Mediaplanet: You founded the Creative Class Group which focuses on helping companies and regions achieve growth and prosperity. In your experience, what role can private partners play in

The Montage Laguna provided an apt backdrop for the day-long symposium, Diversity and the Creative Economy. The goal was razor focused: To discuss how inclusion and creativity can foster economic mobility and prosperity in Orange County, its stunning coastal landscape prominently displayed via 180-degree views from the luxury hotel.

Richard Florida, one of the world’s leading urbanists, is the founder of the Creative Class Group, a researcher, professor, serving as university professor and Director of Cities at the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. Below, he explores the impact of infrastructure on economic competitiveness and productivity.

Childhood, interrupted. I was born in Newark. My dad worked at the Victory Optical factory making eyeglass frames, and we lived in the Italian district of Newark. My parents had a rental apartment overlooking Branch Brook Park. Later we moved close by to North Arlington, New Jersey, because of the Catholic school, Queen of Peace, where my brother and I went. It’s the suburb that’s featured in the opening credits of The Sopranos.

The pace at which new condos are added to Toronto’s red-hot housing market is nowhere near enough to fulfil the needs of a veritable surge of renters and would-be buyers, according to a recent report by Altus Group Ltd.

Since 2005, only around 60 purpose-built rental buildings have been erected in the market, offering a total of 11,620 new units over the 13-year period from then to the present.

Interview with Bernard Michel, Chairman of Gecina French Real Estate Investment Trust. For Richard Florida, the real estate tech movement is a key part of the inclusive urban development and the future of work. But technology as « pharmakon », is also a reality that we need to consider in order to avoid falling into a dystopian scenario: the metropolisation vortex.

Richard Florida named one of the most influential urbanists of our time alongside Jane Jacobs and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Whether you’re a would-be Philanthropist/Social-Entrepreneur or have spent decades being one. You could be worse-off than to read the short biographies of those who’ve been through the journey before.

City brands and the making, management and communication of a city’s strongest assets in the eyes of potential residents, visitors, investors and students, has been a key occupation of economic development professionals all over the world. In this interview, Richard Florida explains why the Creative Classes are so important in achieving city strength and a competitive position.

Professor Richard Florida,
University Professors 2016
Rotman School of Management.
Research Interests: Cities, innovation and urban economic development.

Richard Florida named University Professor. The University of Toronto owes much of its reputation and stature to the quality of its eminent professors. The University recognizes unusual scholarly achievement and pre-eminence in a particular field of knowledge through the designation of University Professor. The number of such appointments does not generally exceed two per cent of the tenured faculty. Its very exclusivity stands to underline the highly prestigious nature of the University Professor designation.

Richard Florida ranked among the most influential business thinkers in the world on a list known as the “Oscars of management thinking”.

Richard Florida among three University of Toronto professors and business leaders placed in the top 15 in a recent ranking of the world’s 50 most influential management thinkers.

The Thinkers50 global ranking of management thinkers is published every two years and is the essential guide to which thinkers and which ideas matter now. Richard Florida ranked 14 of 50 top global thinkers.

The Legacy Project interview with Richard Florida.

Who are the thought leaders shaping today’s discourse on the future of society and the economy? Whose ideas are defining and changing our lives? GDI has measured the influence of the world’s most important thinkers and presents the “Global Thought Leader Map”.

Richard Florida named one of Thinkers50 top thinkers.

Last February, best-selling author and renowned “urbanist” Dr. Richard Florida took the stage at the 2013 Detroit Policy Conference, providing his analysis of Detroit’s continued comeback at MotorCity Casino Hotel. At the event, Florida stressed the importance of tackling urban development with an entrepreneurial spirit and remarked on how impressive the amount of progress made in Detroit has been.

About five months after his keynote speech, Detroit filed for bankruptcy, kicking off a nationwide discussion about the state of the city. The Detroiter caught up with Florida to discuss how bankruptcy has impacted his views of the Motor City.

A portfolio of ideas, our economy today is going through an epochal transformation.

Fast Company contributor profiles.

The Utica Phoenix newspaper has obtained an exclusive personal interview with Richard Florida, the world’s leading urbanist.

A Speakers interviews Richard Florida on the creative class and his speaking.

TELL ME MORE from NPR News interview with Richard Florida on the future of aging in America. By the year 2050, one in five Americans will be over the age of 65. That’s according to the U.S. Census. And when we talk about getting older, most of us think about, what? Saving for retirement, Medicare, Social Security.

Disruptive Women recently sat down with our August 2013 Man of the Month, Richard Florida, Professor, University of Toronto & NYU and Senior Editor and The Atlantic Cities, the world’s leading media site devoted to cities and urban affairs, to chat about what to expect in town near you.

NYU Global Research Professor Richard Florida, one of the world’s leading authorities on economic competitiveness, cultural and technological innovation, and demographic trends, was recently named among the “World’s Most Influential Thinkers” by a study published in the MIT Technology Review that ranked today’s most influential thought leaders.

A new network analysis reveals the thinkers who most influence the rest of us and suggests ways to join this elite list

LDRLB shares its 2013 top 50 professors on twitter, broken into lists around leadership, innovation, and strategy, as well as five at-large professors.

The professors on this list are all respected in their fields, successful in business and research, and highly active in the online community. They are working to make web-based communication technology an integral part of the lifelong learning experience for their students and anyone else who wants to tune in.

Who are the thinkers that shape discourse on the future of business and society? For the first time, the “Thought Leader Map” displays the names that set trends in the market of ideas with Richard Florida ranked #1.

Property Week’s Claer Barrett interviews Richard Florida on what property developers can expect from
the cities of the future?

Richard Florida, one of the world’s leading authorities on economic competitiveness, cultural and technological innovation, and demographic trends has been appointed Global Research Professor for the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS).

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) announced this week that Richard Florida has been named a senior visiting fellow for the Urban Land Institute. The institute, with nearly 30,000 members worldwide, is a nonprofit education and research institute dedicated to responsible land use and the creation of thriving communities around the globe.

Gretchin Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, interviews Richard Florida on his thoughts on happiness, himself.

Richard Florida has faced off numerous critics since he arrived in Toronto. But the globe-trotting urbanist thinks the world can learn a lot from this city’s past and people.

Six individuals selected as the “cream of the crop, gurus of gurudom”

The Goal of Rotman’s MIHNEA Moldoveanu is to create a new breed of business leader.

Richard Florida has brought big urban thinking to Canada? Will prosperity follow?

By Tyler Cabot, Esquire – Dec 2005

By Luke Collins, AFR Boss – March 2004

By Bill Breen, Fast Company – Dec 12

By Ken Adelman, Washingtonian Magazine – Aug 2006

By Christopher Dreher, Salon.com – June 6, 2002

By Annys Shin, The Washington Post – September 18, 2006

Business Week’s Voices of Innovation – Aug 2006