Best of Rouges Magazine: The Creative Class Never Happened

“Court the creative class!” He said.
“Make your city more diverse with LGBT people!” He admonished.
“Invite the jobs of tomorrow!” He implored.
Technology, Talent, and Tolerance were the credos by which cities should live.

Cities took advice from a man named Richard Florida who made a business in the days after the 2008 crisis by giving cities advice (at $25,000 a speech and more for a full plan) on how to court the jobs of tomorrow to replace the ones that they had lost from the old economy. Richard got one thing right: he predicted a return to the city and or urbanism as a counter to the suburbanization of the mid-20th century. However, that’s about all he got right. The rest of his predictions never really worked out. There are multiple reasons for this. After the great recession, American cities had a major problem: how to create some new growth. The GFC had laid bare the flaws in the American economy in much the same way the Covid recession has done, although to much less dire headlines. Richard Florida already had a book on hand to help cities deal with how to revive themselves. However, it’s been 12 years since the great housing crash, whatever happened to the promise of the creative class saving American cities and the American economy? Turns out his ideas were…