Richard Florida published “The Rise of the Creative Class” (2002), presenting an index of creativity for the American cities, this is formed by the 3 T’s -Tolerance, Technology and Talent-. Florida argued that economic growth and innovation are intimately related (related does not imply causality) to the “creative class”. This class is composed of the people who are paid to use their head to create (engineers, musicians, professors, architects, doctors, MIKE’s, etc.) For all his work he got many praises and many critics. In “The Flight of the Creative Class” (2005), he defends himself from the critics, and talks a little bit like what I commented about Friedman “The World is Flat” style. I have not finnished his the second book yet. I like some of his arguments, but sometimes I feel he’s just looking for a bestseller (which he got).
Like him or not, you might find very interesting a report called “The geography of the Danish Creative Class”, a research published last year by Kristina V. Andersen and Mark Lorenzen. In this article they rank the Danish cities according to their creativity and the 3 T’s (following R. Florida idea). With out many surprises they conclude that “the Copenhagen area, especially the area north and north-west of Copenhagen, has very high presence of the creative class, and Copenhagen city itself is rising. The Roskilde area has a high localization of the creative class, as have Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg.” I think is worthy to have a look at the article. Aalborg city needs to work hard in order to obtain the creative class and creative capital. It’s important to remember as you know, that in the European context, Denmark as a “creative” country is doing pretty good. You can see this from the report “Europe in the Creative Age” (2004), in which Florida participated (although I think the report has some flaws).
Right now, for my class with Dr. Shapira, I’m elaborating a simple index of the Creative Class in Spain. If you’re interested to see the results just contact me.
