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Richard Florida – Who’s Your City?

On June 5th, I attended the presentation by Richard Florida as part of the Research in Society Lectures at the 77th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences (Congress 2008) held this year at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. I enjoyed his presentation. He spoke without notes and was a pleasure to listen to.

Chad Gaffield – President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Richard Florida, & Noreen Golfman – President, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

From his website:

In the last 5 years, Florida has penned two national bestsellers, The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class.

His new book, Who’s Your City? takes a look at the way that people choose the places they live and how that affects everything from their real estate to their families.

His previous books, especially The Breakthrough Illusion and Beyond Mass Production, paved the way for his provocative looks at how creativity is revolutionizing the global economy.

Florida has authored pieces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Economist, The Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic Monthly, The Chronicle for Higher Education, U.S. News and World Report and more.

Richard Florida – Who’s Your City?

Some notes I jotted down on my Blackberry from his presentation:

• we are going through a large scale economic and social transformation from which will occur the rise of the creative class
• today our human creative capacity – defined as people paid to do mental or creative work – is becoming the stuff of economic growth
• every single human is creative, 30 percent get to use it, what we need to do is engage the full 100%
• we need to do better in society – the highest levels of economic inequality are also in creative centres (e.g. Austin, San Francisco, New York City)
• we need to upgrade our service industries – there is a new class of job that can’t be farmed off-shore
• world is becoming more geographically unequal than ever before.
• 18 percent of the world’s population drives the world economy
• people have to be mobile today – they are migrating to 20 places in the USA
• most recent book – “Who’s Your City?” – some people like the title, others hate it
• How do cities affect social and psychological well-being?
• What are the pesonalities of cities?
• How does place affect our psychological well-being?
• recommended look at Dan Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness
• when someone gets place right in their life, it has an extraordinary effect on their well-being
• Important to find the place that fits you – focus of Who’s Your City?
• Open communities – (those with open values and beliefs) – do much better, have a higher level of well-being
• Quality of Place is important
• people feel higher levels of being if higher quality of place – e.g. if there is investment in history, also higher levels of happiness. Integration of the natural environment is key
• explained the story of Paul Allen and how his experiences with Jimi Hendrix as a youth motivated him to fund the Experience Music Project design of a centre to explore of creativity and innovation in popular music.
• Asks Why did Hendrix motivate Paul Allen?
• Richard hated school and learning, found that the smartest kids either ended up in prison or died before college
• Why have so many successful people left college?
• Wonders how college can be exciting
• Wants students to love to learn




Richard Florida – Book Signing of Who’s Your City?



My signed copy of Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City?

My photos from Congress 2008 are available on Flickr here.


Relevance: I wonder when creativity will be sufficiently rewarded in our society. I like how social media is making me more aware of creative spirits beyond my neighbourhood — however I still don’t know much about the creative people on my block.