I picked up this book because Brad Feld referenced it once or twice in Startup Communities. Five and a half years later, I’m trying to write a review for it. I vaguely recall nodding my head quite a bit in agreement research and feeling hope from the conclusions. However, I didn’t go back and re-read it. As much as I want to read a book that’s backed by research, sometimes the research is too much of the narrative and I want suggested action. In 2013 I was just getting started as an ecosystem leader/builder. With a few years of experience in that realm under my belt now, I may go back and give this a re-read. Until then, three stars just because I want the gameplan book (Startup Communities) not the research book (this one).
Publisher’s Summary
The national best seller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Rise of the Creative Class 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 masses of new and updated research, Richard 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-with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Leading the shift are the nearly 38 million Americans in many diverse fields who create for a living–the Creative Class.
The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea of change in people’s choices and attitudes, and shows not only what’s happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than 30 percent of the entire workforce. 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.