U.S. News and World Report on Who's Your City? (Richard Florida and The Creati... - The Diigo Meta page

• 15 Feb 08
  

  Yule Heibel

  "Choosing a Place to Live - Why it's as important as picking a spouse" (interview by Bret Schulte with Richard Florida, published in U.S. News and World Report); excerpts: "You have to understand that economic activity isn't spread out. So there's a trade-off we have to make between furthering our career and finding a lifestyle that fits us. (...) If you find a place that fits you, it gives you more energy. People have always been attracted to aesthetics. The other thing is infrastructure. Maybe you like to go outside, or ride your bike. Those things are critically important. What people are saying is they are not going to be fulfilled in a place that just has a good pipe system. They want to live in a place that gives them excitement and energy."

  creative_cities flatness interview richard_florida spikiness

  • The world is not flat, says Richard Florida, contrary to the bestselling book by New York Times writer Thomas Friedman. Florida, author of his own bestselling book, The Rise of the Creative Class,
    and a professor of business and creativity at the University of
    Toronto, argues that while Friedman is correct in saying that
    technology has reshaped the world, it has not created a level playing
    field. With newly accumulated data to back him up, Florida argues in
    his upcoming book Who's Your City? that the world is, in many
    ways, spiky—with population, opportunity, innovation, and money
    increasingly coalescing in metropolitan areas worldwide. That means
    pursuing a career and staying close to family and friends are often at
    odds. Deciding what makes you happy, he argues, must go hand in hand
    with deciding where you want to live.
  • So, in a sense, as you go up the ladder, the world
    got more and more concentrated. Then this idea came to me that the
    world is not flat. It's spiky.
  • 4 more annotations...
  • • The most important
      dimensions of the world's economy continue to concentrate.
    • As our cities grow they get faster and
      faster, better and better, more and more innovative. Some don't, and
      they die. That's why economic activity spikes, because of these
      conglomerations of energy and talent.

    • You go so far as to call the spiky world "tricky and even treacherous."

      
      
      

      
      Right. We can see it in this election. It's really giving rise to class
      conflict. We are starting to see a backlash against cities, and a
      backlash against people who live in them. Urban conglomerations are the
      single most important thing to our competitiveness, yet people won't
      talk about it. And the second thing that worries me is we're unable to
      talk about those being left behind. We're stuck in a stalemate. I would
      like to see everyone live better.

    • Do people realize their happiness is closely linked to place?

      
      
      

      
      Absolutely not. People don't even think about it. But when you ask them
      you begin to discover their place is a critical contributor to their
      happiness. Generally speaking, place tends to the positive side of the
      happiness ledger. That was surprising to us. When we asked people about
      the source of stress in their life, place came in last. If you find a
      place that fits you, it gives you more energy. People have always been
      attracted to aesthetics. The other thing is infrastructure. Maybe you
      like to go outside, or ride your bike. Those things are critically
      important. What people are saying is they are not going to be fulfilled
      in a place that just has a good pipe system. They want to live in a
      place that gives them excitement and energy.

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