The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent - Hardcover

Florida, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006075690X ISBN 13: 9780060756901

Publisher: Harper Business, 2005

Synopsis

Research–driven and clearly written, bestselling economist Richard Florida addresses the growing alarm about the exodus of high–value jobs from the USA.

Today's most valued workers are what economist Richard Florida calls the Creative Class. In his bestselling The Rise of the Creative Class, Florida identified these variously skilled individuals as the source of economic revitalisation in US cities. In that book, he shows that investment in technology and a civic culture of tolerance (most often marked by the presence of a large gay community) are the key ingredients to attracting and maintaining a local creative class.

In The Flight of the Creative Class, Florida expands his research to cover the global competition to attract the Creative Class. The USA once led the world in terms of creative capital. Since 2002, factors like the Bush administration's emphasis on smokestack industries, heightened security concerns after 9/11 and the growing cultural divide between conservatives and liberals have put the US at a large disadvantage. With numerous small countries, such as Ireland, New Zealand and Finland, now tapping into the enormous economic value of this class – and doing all in their power to attract these workers and build a robust economy driven by creative capital – how much further behind will USA fall?

About this title

About the Author

Author of the bestselling The Rise of the Creative Class and Who's Your City? Richard Florida is a regular columnist for The Atlantic. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and other publications. His multiple awards and accolades include the Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Idea of the Year. He was named one of Esquire magazine's Best and Brightest (2005) and one of BusinessWeek's Voices of Innovation (2006). He lives in Toronto, Canada.

From the Back Cover

Research–driven and clearly written, bestselling economist Richard Florida addresses the growing alarm about the exodus of high–value jobs from the USA.

Today's most valued workers are what economist Richard Florida calls the Creative Class. In his bestselling The Rise of the Creative Class, Florida identified these variously skilled individuals as the source of economic revitalisation in US cities. In that book, he shows that investment in technology and a civic culture of tolerance (most often marked by the presence of a large gay community) are the key ingredients to attracting and maintaining a local creative class.

In The Flight of the Creative Class, Florida expands his research to cover the global competition to attract the Creative Class. The USA once led the world in terms of creative capital. Since 2002, factors like the Bush administration's emphasis on smokestack industries, heightened security concerns after 9/11 and the growing cultural divide between conservatives and liberals have put the US at a large disadvantage. With numerous small countries, such as Ireland, New Zealand and Finland, now tapping into the enormous economic value of this class – and doing all in their power to attract these workers and build a robust economy driven by creative capital – how much further behind will USA fall?

Reviews

Following up on The Rise of the Creative Class (2002), Florida argues that if America continues to make it harder for some of the world's most talented students and workers to come here, they'll go to other countries eager to tap into their creative capabilities—as will American citizens fed up with what they view as an increasingly repressive environment. He argues that the loss of even a few geniuses can have tremendous impact, adding that the "overblown" economic threat posed by large nations such as China and India obscures all the little blows inflicted upon the U.S. by Canada, Scandinavia, New Zealand and other countries with more open political climates. Florida lays his case out well and devotes a significant portion of this polemical analysis to defending his earlier book's argument regarding "technology, talent, and tolerance" (i.e. that together, they generate economic clout, so the U.S. should be more progressive on gay rights and government spending). He does so because that book contains what he sees as the way out of the dilemma—a new American society that can "tap the full creative capabilities of every human being." Even when he drills down to less panoramic vistas, however, Florida remains an astute observer of what makes economic communities tick, and he's sure to generate just as much public debate on this new twist on brain drain. 25-city radio tour.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Professor Florida makes an impassioned plea, using his first book, The Rise of the Creative Class (2002), as a jump start, for the U.S. to retain its stature as an open and welcoming home for talent. And lest readers think that the author has overstated the hype, that engineers, scientists, and other innovators are not emigrating from America, he musters up an incredible quantity of quality statistics that would disable any contrarian, from the unaffordability of our cities to our insistence on outsourcing. Yet this brain drain is not attributable simply to verifiable factors; rather, it is in large part driven by our demise as an open, tolerant society. Look at the numbers of films now produced in Toronto, New Zealand, and Australia. Who now has the lead in developing new ideas in consumer electronics? Note the decreasing numbers of Nobel Prizes awarded to U.S. citizens. How do we solve the problem? He admits his four-pronged program is not an overnight panacea; it requires a profound societal shift. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper Business
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006075690X
• ISBN 13: 9780060756901
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320