Armchair Sociologist: Mapping the Creative Class
We’re all familiar with those game-changing books. The ones that you can’t escape for weeks on end if you spend any amount of time with NPR, The Economist or The Wall Street Journal. The ones that explode all over the media until they’re quickly never mentioned again. When it comes to these books, you’d be excused for thinking there’s some sneaky cabal of publicists angling for those 100-word blurbs in Newsweek and prime real estate at Borders. (Hmm.)
One such was 2003’s The Rise of the Creative Class, whose premise is so simple (We live in a knowledge economy? Who knew!), you might feel like a dolt for not having written it yourself. Well, Richard Florida is back with his third follow-up, Who’s Your City?, and the Web site has some intriguing maps.
A few of my favorites.
Minneapolis is apparently a part of Chi-Pitts. I’d love to know how they came up with these areas.
Why are all the single women in the East and men in the West? Can’t we do something about that? Some sort of singles exchange program.
Extroverted people in southern Wisconsin? I don’t buy it. neurotic people in New York? Yes.
