The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life

Florida, Richard

ISBN 10: 0465024769 / ISBN 13: 9780465024766

Published by Perseus Books Group - Basic Books, New York, New York, U.S.A., 2002

About this Item

404 Pages Indexed. White boards with orange quarter-spine and gold spine lettering. No defects noted. Dust jacket price $27.50 is unclipped. There is a very small stain on the inside spine area of the dust jacket. Contents in Four Parts: The Creative Age, Work, Life and Leisure, and Community. This book gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today-and where we might be headed. In a book that weaves story-telling with a massive body of research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy. Just as William Whyte's 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have-with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Leading the shift are the nearly 38 million Americans in many diverse fields who create for a living -- the Creative Class. The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it sterns from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than thirty percent of the entire workforce. The choices these people make already have had a huge economic impact, and in the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.

Seller Inventory # 13579

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group - Basic Books, New York, New York, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465024769
• ISBN 13: 9780465024766
• Binding: Hard Back
• Edition: Sixth Printing
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Many writers have commented on the massive social changes of the past few decades, but most of them have treated these shifts as something imposed on us, by technology or the marketplace. This is wrong, says Richard Florida: we've chosen to alter our values, work, and lifestyle, and for good economic reasons. Why have we done this?Florida finds the answer in the rise of a new social class. Like other classes, its basis is economic. Just as the feudal aristocracy derived its identity and values from its hereditary control of land and people, and the bourgeoisie derived its identity and values from its role as merchants of goods, the Creative Class derives its identity and values from its role as purveyors of creativity. When we see ourselves as "creative," our self-image affects the choices we make in every area of our lives.Based on a massive body of research, The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea-change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises nearly forty million Americans, or more than 25% of all employed people. The choices these people make have already had a huge economic impact, and in the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.

About the Author

Richard Florida is H. John Heinz III Professor of Regional Economic Development, Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University. A columnist for Information Week (circ. 400,000), he gives fifty to one hundred invited lectures a year, to mostly business audiences. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.