Richard Florida at Butler

Richard Florida’s book, The Rise of the Creative Class, created a sensation when it was published in 2002. Florida, a professor of economic development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, put research-based meat on the bones of other peoples’ intuitions, showing that a city’s cultural resources and attitudes could predict its economic success. Urban planners across the nation have jumped on Florida’s ideas and further studies at the University of Minnesota have backed him up. Nevertheless, Florida has also drawn fire from critics who find his views naive, elitist or just plain wrong. At the very least it seems fair to say he’s on to something about the ways we think about work, leisure and where we live are changing. Whether we like those changes is another matter.

Florida himself is a compelling messenger. He will be speaking tonight, March 24, at Butler University’s Atherton Hall at 8 p.m. Admission is free.