The Rise of the Creative Class (2002)

 

The Rise of the Creative Class is a 2002  non-fiction book written by American geographer and economist Richard Florida It charts the growing importance of creative workers in the US economy, and argues that their distinctive lifestyles and work habits now dictate economic development and business management.

 It defines creative workers as those who add economic value through their ideas, and problem solving. Artists, inventors, and researchers are core creative class members, but so are lawyers, doctors, computer programmers and others who are devoted to small scale solutions.

  The book argues that Creatives have rejected the management styles of the organizational age. They are motivated more by challenge, responsibility and peer recognition than “carrot and stick” incentives of the organizational age. They shun the older era’s rigid dress codes and schedules, preferring customization to conformity.

  Much of the book advocates a new economic development strategy for the Creative Age.  Traditional strategies are focused on attracting firms and hard capital. Communities are encouraged to exploit their physical resources and to create low-cost, friendly business environments. The book argues that communities should abandon this strategy, and begin luring creative professionals, by appealing to their values and lifestyle choices.

 In particular the book suggests that regions seek the “Three T’s” of economic development: Technology (high tech jobs), Tolerance (openness to new ideas, lifestyles) and Talent (professionals with a bachelor degree or above).  Tolerance, the most unorthodox of these, is important because it means there are low barriers of entry to human capital, and also because it is highly valued by Creatives.

      

II METHODOLOGY 

 The book is heavily based on <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Florida</place></state>’s primary research. Most of this comes from open-ended interviews with “Creative Class” members, and other experts in the field. The book also borrows from research into economic development, urban planning, culture, demography and technology. Frequently cited studies include the 2001 Information Week Annual Salary Survey , the Milken Institute’s High Tech Index and qualitative work from Jane Jacobs, David Brooks, Joseph Schumpeter, and Peter Drucker.  and his associates developed quantitative indices to measure regional health including the “Talent Index”, the “Diversity Index” and the “Coolness Index”.

  

III SELECTED CHAPTER SUMMARIES 

Chapter One – “The Transformation of Everyday Life” - Thesis of “The Rise of the Creative Class” 

The  economy is increasingly driven by those who “add economic value through their creativity” (68) - the Creative Class. The thirty-eight million members of this class are governed by new values and tastes and they organize their lives distinctively. The challenge for businesses and communities in the creative era is to keep pace with these trends or fall behind. The challenge for the Creative Class itself is twofold- to become self-aware, and to ensure that the rest of society doesn’t fall behind.

 Part One the Creative Age- Defining the Creative Class 

 

Chapter Two- “The Creative Ethos” Notes on Creativity  

 Here draws conclusions about creativity itself. First creativity is essential to modern life, and it has always been a critical feature of economic growth. Second it relies on a “broadly creative environment” (p22) to support and sustain it; an environment that is both open to new ideas and stable enough to allow  for continuity (p35). Third, creativity is inevitably at odds with organizational forms. Organization and process are necessary to harness and direct it to productive ends but too much can stifle creativity.

 Other defining features of creativity:

 Creativity is a renewable resource that is improved by continued used, not diminished.

• Creativity involves the ability to combine and synthesize elements in current forms to “ destroy ones gestalt in favor of a better one” (31)
• Creativity is inherent in most people to varying degrees and not just in “creative geniuses” (32).
• Creativity is process driven. It relies on preparation (studying a problem/task), incubation (mulling a problem/task over), illumination (creating a new synthesis for a task) and verification or revision. Different forms of creativity (artistic, technological, and economic) rely on this process.
• Creative work is driven by intrinsic rewards – the fulfillment of doing creative work itself, and external rewards like peer appreciation.

  Chapter 3- “The Creative Economy” The Importance of Creativity to Economic Activity and Organization  

 Chapter three discusses the importance of creative functions in the current and historical economies. It offers statistical evidence of a shift towards a creative economy.

• Research and development spending (spending on technical creativity) grew by 800% between 1950 and 2000.

• In 1955 there were 400 science workers for every 100,000 Americans. By 1999.there were 1800 per 100,000. 
• The number of artistic workers (artists, writers, and performers) grew by 375% between 1950 and 1999.
• The number of registered patents tripled between 1950 and 1999.

 Creative growth has been nurtured by new organizational forms including venture capital and modular manufacturing.

 Venture Capital 

Venture Capital funds (especially Capital Limited Partnerships) were able to fund new projects, while minimizing risk and liability for investors. The US VC system became “the world’s largest formal system for developing and funding new companies” (50) spawning companies like, Intel and Fairchild Semi-Conductor. But venture capital itself does not lead to new innovations without the creative environments found in Silicon Valley and Route 128, and elaborated on in the rest of the book.

 Modular Manufacturing 

Modular Manufacturing has revolutionized production in the creative age. Sub-contractors have taken on more of the actual production, leaving core marketing and design functions to the core companies. This system allows firms to specialize in creative functions, and become better at them. In factories Total Quality Control manufacturing has replaced top-down quality control, making every factory worker responsible for increasing efficiency.  . 

 Next  argues that that “economic history can be read as developing new and better ways to harness creativity” (56).

The first creative shift was to agricultural subsistence away from hunting and gathering. While innovative hunting techniques only deplete resources faster, creative farming creates generates more resources. The shift to trade allowed for specialization in separate fields. Specialization allowed for all workers to focus their innovation on one sector, and allowed for creative arts and crafts sectors to open up. The shift to large scale manufacturing (industry) allowed rapid development of more efficient organizations and technologies (electricity) to make things.

 The emergence of highly systematized, large corporations and organizations in the early 20^th century also spurred creativity. Large corporations and universities began to base innovation in laboratories like Bell Labs where innovation was stable and more organized.  In this age, mass produced creative “inventions” like newspapers, magazines and television sets were cheap enough to be accessed by the average person. Alongside these improvements, however, was the sort of insular, regimented environment documented in William Whyte’s “The Organization Man”.

 Chapter 4 “The Creative Class’ Who is in the Creative Class and how are they different? 

 Florida says the Creative Class is composed of those who add value through their ideas, and problem solving. .It is subdivided into two parts “the Super-Creative Core” whose members produce “meaningful new forms” like products, songs, theorems or strategies and “Creative Professionals” who engage in “creative problem solving”.  Lawyers, doctors, technicians and programmers are included in this sub-class. Alongside the Creative Class a growing  “de-creativized” Service Class which includes food workers groundskeepers and the like. There is also a Working Class and an Agricultural Class, both of which are shrinking.

 

uses standard occupational classification data from the US Census to quantify class structure.

 

US Workforce by Class (From RCC, p 74)

 

Class	Occupations	% of  US Economy (1999)
Super Creative Core	Engineers, Artists, Professors	12%
Creative Professionals	Doctors, Lawyers, Technicians, Programmers	18%
Service  Class	Counter Workers, Janitors, Clerical Workers	43%
Working Class	Manufacturing, Transportation, Construction	25%

 

Creative Values 

More than by their occupations, Creative Class workers can be distinguished by their values. Creatives are highly individualistic; rejecting conformity and even classification as part of a class. They believe strongly in meritocracy, that hard work and talent will be rewarded. They are open to new ideas and lifestyle choices and they value diversity of both.  They have achieved high enough levels of wealth that they are less concerned with wealth and materialism, and more with living engaging and fulfilling lives.

 

 

Part Two- Work  

Chapter 5 “The Machine Shop and the Hair Salon” Beyond money as a dominant motivator.  

 

Non- Monetary Motivators 

Challenge and Responsibility- Creatives are motivated by the ability to contribute something meaningful. They scorn bureaucracies that “peck away” at contributions, or confine people to insignificant tasks.

 

Flexibility- Creatives do not want to be tied to their job or defined by it. They want the freedom to pursue hobbies and side projects. They want a range of responsibilities, and power over their work environment.

 

Peer Recognition – Peer recognition has always motivated scientists and professors, and is a fundamental creative driver for the Creative Class as a whole. Florida  cites open source software developers, who work for free, and are largely rewarded by praise from their fellow developers.

 

While Florida sees these motivators as essential markers of the Creative Class, he notes that they are becoming more important to everybody, even machinists.  He ends by urging all work places to adopt the “values and structures of the creative age”

 

Chapter 6 ‘The Horizontal Labor Market” Exploring the high turnover world 

 

Chapter six contrasts the “vertical labor markets” for professionals of the past, with today’s highly lateral and mobile markets.

 

 

Companies are tied to employees. They downsize and cutback to achieve efficiency and they circumvent paying benefits by relying more on independent contractors.

 

In such a world it is difficult to stay at a company for life, even if one wants to. In fact Americans now change jobs every 3.5 years on average. Creatives feel less connected to individual companies; they identify more with their professions, and lifestyle choices. They are becoming cyclists” or “web designers” more than “Microsoft employees”. And because they are constantly marketing themselves to employers, Creatives are updating their own skills to become more employable.

 

Debunking Myths    

Creatives do not exist in what Daniel Pink calls a “free agent paradise”. Most are still employed by companies and subject to their demands. And consultants must laboriously compete against each other for work.  Nor is the shift to downsizing and contracting entirely negative, as Aronowitz and Rifkin say in “The End of Work”.  Loyalty is now devoted to more meaningful things like lifestyle, profession, and family then to profit-seeking corporations.

 

Chapter 7 “The No-Collar Workplace” Flexible Norms for the Creative Workplace 

 

This chapter argues that workplace norms have relaxed in order to attract creative talent, and create an “efficient” atmosphere for creative work.

 

Dress Codes 

Dress codes have been scrapped in the no-collar work place.  Employees are now free to dress in casual clothes which might be more comfortable for creative work, or more expressive of individuality. They aren’t required to dress informally, but many choose to because of the status of informal dress in the creative economy.

 

Schedules 

Corporate schedules have been relaxed. More creative professionals are working from home, or under flexible schedules. More are able to change their work schedules according to their needs. Flexible schedules are more amenable to creative work, which requires long periods of concentration, followed by periods of rest.

 

Workspace 

Workspace has become more comfortable, more useable and more interactive. Cubicles are replaced with more social layouts that encourage employees to discuss and innovate together. Attempts are made to make space seem more rugged with use of exposed brick, or renovation of old lofts, creating a more playful environment. Modern design and architecture signal to employees and customers that a company is on the cutting edge.

 

 

Chapter 8 “Managing Creativity” Inside the new employment contract 

 

Florida identifies a shift in the creative employment contract. Employer demands are more indirect, but more effective. Employee demands revolve less around long term job security than what Dennis Rousseau calls “idiosyncratic deals” (135).

 

 

In effective creative environments (like open-sources software development) employees motivate themselves. Stock options vest employees directly in their work, encouraging them to try hard. Employers make employees emotionally vested in their work by giving them challenging tasks, or creating systems of peer recognition.

 

As the Business Week survey shows, people are more motivated by these than corporate bonuses or ultimatums. Employees place short term demands on their employees tailored to their specific schedules and desires. They demand flexible schedules, a flexible job description, and sufficient challenge.

 

 

Chapter 9 “The Time Warp” Distinguishing creative time from time for everyone else 

 

Chapter nine dismantles the myth that all Americans work more now than ever. In fact, while the average American has as much free time as work time, Creatives are more likely to work long hours. Almost half of all managers, and forty-percent of all professionals work more than 49 hours a week, while only fifteen percent of the working class do so (146).  Creative Class members are also dramatically more likely to feel stressed by their work. Idle time is another source of stress; the Creative Class is increasingly frustrated by waiting rooms, and traffic gridlock.

 

Causes 

The time disparity is rooted in several trends. First, many professions lack enough skilled employees and must demand more from their current workers. Second, salaried workers are not compensated for overtime. Third because creative work is so hard to assess, time on the job is defaulted to as measure of effort.  As real wages increase for creatives, idle time becomes more valuable and more frustrating to lose.

 

Coping Mechanisms 

Flexible schedules are one strategy for coping with time demands. Creatives inter-weave leisure, personal work, and professional work in order to get everything done on time and not get burned out by one activity.  Another strategy is time-deepening: getting more out of each minute by speeding up activities, planning them and doing more than one at the same time.

 

Creatives restructure their lives in large scale ways. They “front load” (154) their careers and defer life decisions like marriage and children until after they have achieved status (i.e. tenure for the professor, partner for lawyers). They are more likely to “life-shift”, or completely change their location, schedule and time worked, along with their job. , engaging in “quarter-life” or “two-thirds life” shifts.

 

Part 3 Life and Leisure 

 

Chapter 10 The Experiential Life Inside the Active Creative Lifestyle 

 

Chapter ten argues that the creative lifestyle is more participatory and ‘experience driven’ than lifestyles of other classes. While the working class might spend its free time watching organized sports, the average creative would rather participate in active sports.  And when they play sports it is in a less organized, more individuated way.  Creatives also disdain being spectators at high end venues like opera houses and art galleries. They prefer “street level” venues like coffee-shops, small galleries and restaurants where they can interact with art and artists. 

 

The active lifestyle serves useful functions for the Creative Class.  First it allows them to escape from their sedentary desks and computers, and “recharge through physical activity” (174) Active pursuits are an efficient use of free time, a good that is scarce to Creatives.  According to one of Florida’s respondents “you get more entertainment value per unit of time” (180). 

 

In the chapter’s final section, Florida warns that authentic experiences are often packaged and sold in inauthentic ways. Corporate chains like the Banana Republic use experiences to sell their brands, and chains of clubs try to commodify and replicate the “street-level” excitement.  The Creative Class, he says, is weary of such efforts. 

 

Chapter 11 “The Big Morph (A Rant)” The Bourgeoisie-Bohemian synthesis and its Effect on the Economy 

 

This chapter argues that formerly disparate values have synthesized in the Creative Class, using David Brooks’ “Bobo “concept as a starting off point.  In Bobos in Paradise Brooks argues that baby boomers have embraced the bourgeoisie work ethic and the bohemian lifestyle.Florida agrees with this basic premise, but he argues that the synthesis isn’t confined to the boomer generation.  Furthermore, the bohemian-protestant synthesis has gone beyond lifestyle to affect the economy as a whole. 

 

Critics from across the spectrum have agued that this synthesis is untenable and vulnerable to self- cannibalism. Social conservatives like Daniel Bell argue that bohemian hedonism compromises society’s productive ethic. Liberals charge that bohemianism has merely been co-opted by capitalism, and robbed of its meaningfulness.  Florida's answer to these critics is that old categories don’t matter any more: 

 

The Big Morph is a synthesis so deep that it has moved beyond the old categories to produce the shared work and lifestyle ethic that I call the creative ethos” (192)   

 

Silicon Valley, which housed the development of many economically successful companies, was founded by many who were “outside of the corporate and cultural mainstream” (205), and resistant to ruling capitalism. For instance, Paul Allen and Bill Gates were seasoned hackers, and Lee Felsenstein wrote for a radical Berkeley. Everyone in Silicon Valley was engaged in a type of risky, high tech work that was shunned by the corporate heartland. In spite of this the Creative Class does not consider itself “alternative” or outside of the mainstream.  They are “the new mainstream” (204 )

 

 

Part Four Community 

 

Chapter 12: “The Power of Place” Exploring where creative types cluster.  

 

The chapter begins by arguing against authors like Kevin Kelly who proclaim that geography is dead. According to Kelly “The New Economy operates in a space rather than a place and over time more and more economic transactions will migrate to this new space.”(Rise of the Creative Class 219) According to Florida this view is intuitively unproven, since both people and industries have continued to concentrate heavily in space.  

 

In order to address why companies and people concentrate, Florida turns to the Human Capital theory of economic growth.  According to the Human Capital theory, regions that attract educated and productive people (including the Creative Class) will experience more growth than regions with low business costs. This is because the efficiencies that are generated by highly educated people are more meaningful than those generated by low taxes or wages.  

 

Many factors attract the Creative Class, a class with high human capital, to regions. These include 

 

Thick Labor Markets The Creative Class works is horizontal labor markets, so they prefer places with large clusters of employers in their industry.  

 

Lifestyle Creative types prefer regions with a range of experiential lifestyle options, not just nightlife. Because they have flexible and unpredictable schedules they demand regions that are open around the clock. 

 

Social Interaction Creative capital is attracted to places with lots of places to “hang out” like coffee shops and book stores, places that Ray Oldenberg calls “Third Places”. These are more comfortable, and less rigid than work, but less personal than the home.  

 

Identity As corporations cease to inform the Creative identity, Creatives seek regions with their own high-status identities.  

 

Diversity Creatives are drawn to places with an array of ethnic communities and lifestyles. Diversity signals open-mindedness, an important creative value. It also denotes excitement and energy to creatives.  

 

Chapter 13: “The Geography of Creativity” Winners and Losers in the Creative Sweepstakes 

 

Traditionally, different classes are distributed to different areas of a region resulting in intra-urban inequalities in terms of economic success and quality of life. Chapter thirteen argues that the Creative Class is increasingly distributed in some regions over others.  

 

Florida and his associates have devised a “Creative Index” to measure how well regions attract Creative workers. It consists of four equally weighted factors. 

 

1) The share of the workforce in creative occupations. 

2) Innovation, measured in patents per capita 

3) High Tech Industry – based on the Milken Institute’s Tech Pole Index  

4) Diversity- measured by the percentage of gay couples in the region. 

 

 

Chapter 14: “The Three T’s of Economic Development” Florida’s Economic Development Recipe

 

Through correlation analysis, the chapter shows how regions attract the Creative Class.   Florida demonstrates that “The Three T’s”: Technology, Talent and Tolerance are attributes of a creative community and that they are intimately connected.  Regions must possess all three of these in order to attract creative capital. 

 

Talent and Technology 

Regions with “high tech industry and innovation are strongly associated with locations of the Creative Class and talent in general” (252).  In 2000 fifteen of the top twenty high tech regions and fourteen of the top twenty innovation regions were in the Creative Class top twenty. There was also a negative correlation between talent and working class regions. 

 

The Importance of Tolerance 

<place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Florida</state></place> devises two indexes to test the relationship between openness to outsiders, innovation and technological growth. The Melting Pot Index, which combines a region’s foreign born population and its technological growth, shows that technology and immigration are positively correlated. The Melting Pot Index does not, however, correlate with high degrees of innovation. 

 

The second index “The Gay Index” is at once novel and highly significant. It is generated using census data on unmarried partners of the same sex, and it is a strong predictor of high tech industry. The Gay Index is positively strongly correlated with the Creative Class, and negatively so with the working class. Florida does not suggest here, that gay populations directly bolster high tech industry.  Rather, because homosexuals have not fully integrated into society, a large gay population demonstrates openness to all kinds of people, and low barriers to entry for human capital. Not only do Creative’s value diversity, but there is more chance they will be accepted in areas where homosexuals are also accepted.  

 

Amenities  

By this point in the book <place w:st="on"><state w:st="on">Florida</state></place> has devoted a lot of time to describing the creative lifestyle. It’s no surprise then, that he also measures the relationship between the “Three T’s” and cultural amenities. His Bohemian Index measures the amount of cultural workers in an economy including musicians, and artists. The Bohemian index is a strong predictor of employment growth and other traditional economic success.