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15 Feb 08

U.S. News and World Report on Who's Your City? (Richard Florida and The Creative Class Exchange)

"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."

creativeclass.typepad.com/...us-news-and-wor.html - Preview

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.