« Herd this one lately..? | Main | The Big Idea »

August 30, 2005

Richard Florida in Cape Town

(Image © Design Indaba)

Yay. The guru on creative economies is coming to Cape Town, thanks to the UCT Graduate School of Business, Design Indaba, ACSA, Western Cape Government and City of Cape Town.

Those that know me have heard me going on about how well Cape Town fits Florida's 4T index, and why I believe this city is such an undiscovered gem amongst the design and creative centres of the world.

Definitely book to see him, and get an alternative perspective on what impact the creative sector can have on an economy. Especially one like ours, where for a long time, the bulk of economic activity has been around making stuff (which can be very susceptible to outsourcing/off-shoring), as opposed to thinking up new stuff. Read my backgrounder for more info on this.

"Innovation and creativity happens in places, in cities and regional clusters. As Richard Florida puts it: “Cities have become cities of ideas and cities of consumption. They are no longer cities of production….Place has become the central organising unit of our time, taking on many of the functions that used to be played by firms.”

So where is this taking us? It’s clear that there is a new ‘order’ emerging, or as Florida correctly terms, a new class. However our notion of the term class needs to be rethought: A class here is a cluster of people who have common interests and tend to think, feel, and behave similarly, but these similarities are fundamentally determined by economic function – by the kind of work they do for a living.

In this context it is not meant to refer to an elite, nor an excuse to demarcate and develop yuppified areas.

Florida calls this new order the Creative Class, whose primary economic function is to create new ideas, new technologies or creative content. The difference between the Creative Class and other ‘classes’ lies in what they’re primarily paid to do. Those in the Working Class and the Service Class are primarily paid to execute to plan, while those in the Creative Class are paid to create and have considerably more autonomy and flexibility than the other two classes do."

He's written numerous articles and several books (some here and here.)

Posted by sdehaast at August 30, 2005 3:24 PM Posted to cape town