Richard Florida. The Creative Class

Why do some areas, such as Austin, TX; Silicon Valley; Raleigh-Durham, prosper, while other areas just wither away? Why does one city have 150 people moving in each day, while others watch their young people slowly move away?

Richard Florida thinks he has the answer. It's the creative class.

This is probably his most seminal book. He says economies thrive where there is a creative class. This class is attracted by number of things:

·         A region must have a large number of skilled (highly educated) workforce that works around one kind of industry: health care, high tech, banking, etc. This allows the companies to draw from a large pool; it also allows workers to change employers.

·         The social setting also requires a society that has a less educated workforce that will do their other work (landscaping, house cleaning, etc.) Thus a marker is a high level of inequality. 

·         Another marker is tolerance: being able to live and work with others. Those societies that cannot accept new ideas and new people will wither away.