Clashes in Urban Trend Forecasting

Maisonneuve has an excellent comparison between the duelling urban trend theories of Richard Florida and Joel Kotkin. Noted:

Unfortunately, the debate over the creative class increasingly resembles a Fox News shouting match. Florida is portrayed as a big-government lackey who advocates reckless spending on museums and symphony halls, while Kotkin is accused of pandering to a social-conservative agenda. “I blame the media for this,” Kotkin says. “There’s less intelligent discussion about [cities] and more soap opera.” He continues, “It would be of more use to have a discussion on these issues and see what comes out of that rather than have a cartoonish debate.”

Ultimately, though, Florida seems to have the momentum. It’s easy to dismiss his ideas as a vacuous cash grab that nets big bucks for his research firm and big losses for cities, but that doesn’t do justice to his basic message that cities need to invest in people and street-level innovation, not incentives for big corporations or baseball teams. Kotkin is absolutely right when he says that cities must first of all invest in the infrastructure and public services that will maintain a healty and heterogeneous population. But that’s only part of the story.

Well worth reading: Christopher deWolf's "Creative Class War".

Related from the LL Archives: The Best Laid Plans.