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The Rise of the
Creative Class
, where he notes that many experts on
urban and regional growth have emphasized the
importance of places as incubators of creativity and
new industries (Florida: p. 219). Contrary to expec-
tations, the New Economy that was supposed to
destroy place and render cities obsolete, increasingly
makes place more relevant by clustering activities
around real concentrations of people in real places.
The question posed by Florida is not whether com-
panies cluster, but why do they cluster in some loca-
tions and not others? What role does physical place
play in this process?
Florida’s research strongly suggests that companies
locate in close proximity to one another to recruit
from concentrations of talented people who spur inno-
vation and create economic growth (Florida: 
p. 220). Unlike their parents and grandparents, cre-
ative people today don’t simply settle where the jobs
are. They gather in places they like to live and which
are centers of creativity in themselves. Creative people
look for places where they can make friends easily, find
acceptance of diverse lifestyles, enjoy a wide variety of
recreation and entertainment and live productive and
stimulating lives.
Florida’s ‘creative class’ comprised 30 percent of
America’s workforce in 2002. They are scientists,
computer professionals and programmers, architects,
engineers and graphic and product designers,
entrepreneurs, educators, artists, musicians and enter-
tainers. Around this core clusters a broader group of
other creative professionals in business and finance,
law and health care. It is this 30 percent of America’s
workforce, Florida concludes, that will provide the
energy and talent to power the next generation of eco-
nomic growth and wealth creation.
In essence, the informal, flexible, and intensive
work habits of people like the authors – professors/
architect/artist/writers – have moved from what used
to be the fringes of the marketplace into the eco-
nomic mainstream. These workplace characteristics
contrast with those of the tightly organized corporate
professionals of yesterday, and Florida’s thesis is
supported by the latest research into workplace
trends. English architect-author Frank Duffy, a world
authority on office design, predicts that the days of
the large-scale corporate headquarters are numbered.
DESIGN FIRST: DESIGN-BASED PLANNING FOR COMMUNITIES
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In their stead are new innovative types of office envi-
ronment based on more flexible work patterns that
suit creative professionals (Duffy, 1997).
The members of this new creative class are drawn
to places that offer a range of economic opportuni-
ties, a stimulating environment, and amenities for
people with diverse lifestyles. In America, such
places as Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts;
Seattle; San Francisco; Austin; Boulder, Colorado;
Gainesville, Florida and Santa Fe, New Mexico pro-
vide the stimulation, diversity and richness of experi-
ence desired by these creative people (Florida: p. 11).
Generic suburbia, bland at best, alienating at worst,
cannot meet these requirements. Creative profession-
als prefer communities that have a distinctive charac-
ter, diversity, are accepting of difference, and that
offer lifestyle options. Such attributes are nurtured by
the quality and attractiveness of physical places – a
lively street scene, an arts district, a thriving music
scene and older neighborhoods with interesting and
unique buildings.
The relationship of this theory of the ‘creative
class’ to urban form is amplified by the research of
Ray Oldenburg, whose book 
A Great Good Place
documents the role of ‘third places’ in modern soci-
ety. Home and work are the first two places, and
the third comprises venues like bookstores, cafés
and coffee shops which support a community’s
social vitality, and where a ‘stranger feels at home’
(Oldenburg: p. xxviii). These informal gathering
spots amplify and extend the communal space of the
street, and provide relief from patterns of focused
work or a single lifestyle and provide a setting for
group gatherings.
Such places work best as part of a walkable neigh-
borhood, and this book was written in one such
setting, in a space cleared from canvasses in the front
room of a two-room painting studio on the second
floor of an old brick building. Beneath us are a pic-
ture framing shop and a beauty salon. Next door is a
digital animation studio over an art gallery, and a cof-
fee shop. A few yards up the street is a one-person car
repair business. Across the street are the studios of an
artists’ cooperative, the offices of Charlotte’s weekly
African-American newspaper, the premises of a
replacement window company, a second-hand busi-
ness furniture showroom, and a funky restaurant.
Beyond the new light rail tracks outside our window
stands a block of recently constructed apartments
and small offices for architects, financial advisors,
and interior decorators opposite some older buildings
containing an antique store.
More apartments are under construction on the
next block, adjacent to the neighborhood fried
chicken take-away restaurant, and at the south end of
the street a cluster of converted warehouses are home
to several design firms, including UNC-Charlotte’s
Community Design Studio. One block to the east
and north are more restaurants, bars and offices, two
large apartment complexes, two more thriving car
repair businesses and a barbed wire compound with
secondhand cars for sale. Our street is slowly evolving
into the ‘Main Street’ of a new urban village with a
diverse population, and we frequently take breaks
and drop into the coffee shop just to chat, see our
neighbors, meet our students, chat to strangers or to
read over what we’ve just written. At the end of the
day, we can stride half-a-mile up the sidewalk by the
rail line to the gym to work out, or walk a leisurely
seven blocks to home. This predilection for neigh-
borhood and community doesn’t mean that we abhor
virtual space. On the contrary, we are connected to
the Internet as we write, and we communicate the
daily trivia of our lives on our mobile phones. The
point is, we 
could
do this anywhere, but we 
choose
to
do it in an attractive urban place (see Figure 1.12).
This vignette is increasingly typical of developing
neighborhoods, and we feel lucky to be part of one
such special place. Contrary to Melvin Webber’s the-
sis of the 1960s that place doesn’t matter any more,
and the predictions of techno-futurists that ‘geogra-
phy is dead,’ research increasingly demonstrates the
opposite: place itself is fast becoming the main organ-
izing feature of economic activity. Even while arguing
that electronic space is more important than physical
CHAPTER ONE
●
PARADIGMS LOST AND FOUND