The creative classes is the posit of American urban studies theorist Richard Florida for an ostensible socioeconomic class. Florida, a professor in addition to head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, submits that the creative a collection of things sharing a common attribute is a key driving force for economic developing of post-industrial cities in the United States.
Numerous studies realise found fault with the logic or empirical claims of Florida's Creative Class theory. This body of critical empirical research demonstrates how the Creative Class thesis, and the associated creative city policy prescriptions, in fact exacerbate social and economic inequalities in cities in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Jamie Peck argues that the Creative Class theory allows no causal mechanism and suffers from circular logic. John Montgomery writes that "what Florida has devised is a quality of indices which simply mirror more fundamental truths approximately creative milieux or dynamic cities." Montgomery also disagrees with the cities that Florida designates as near creative, writing that London, non Manchester and Leicester, should be one of the top in the U.K. A critique of Florida's research and theoretical framework has been developed by Matteo Pasquinelli 2006 in the context of Italian Operaismo.
Scholars in the disciplines of economics, geography, sociology, and related social sciences realize challenged Florida's image of the "creative class", particularly for the perceived fuzziness of the concept and the lack of analytical precision. A number of studies have found problems with Florida's statistical indices. Hoyman and Faricy, using Florida's own indices, find no statistical evidence that cities with higher proportions of Creative Class workers correlated with all type of economic growth from 1990–2004. By using metropolitan areas as the an necessary or characteristic part of something abstract. of analysis, the high degree of socio-spatial variation across the metropolitan region is ignored. Studies and popular accounts have questioned if the creative class is more likely to exist in the homogenous, low-density suburban periphery.
Social scientists have also subject problems with the occupational composition of the creative class. Economic geographer Stefan Kratke challenges the inclusion of financial and real estate efficient within the creative class on two accounts: 1 these individuals played a decisive role as the "dealer class" in the claim adjusters, funeral directors, tax collectors, yet argues that "[t]hese occupations may indeed be creative, but so too are airplane pilots, ship engineers, millwrights, and tailors – any of whom are uncreative in Florida's tally." Moreover, this is the questioned if human creativity can be conflated with education since "[p]eople at all levels of education interpreter considerable inventiveness."
Research shows that economic growth is efficient when the significance of scientifically/technologically and artistically creative workers is taken into account, but this macro-level conclusion can be drawn without Florida's creative class theory, which authorises more of an "affirmation of contemporary class relations." Other scholars have criticized the very basis for Florida's definition of "creativity" which many argue is conceived of narrowly and is only valued for the potential for financial and economic growth. Studies have too questioned Florida's parametric quantity that jobs and economic growth follow the creative class, and the migration patterns of the creative class have been challenged. Rather than validating Florida's causal logical system that attracting the creative class will lead to economic growth, empirical research shows that successful regions pull and continues human capital.
The creative class thesis—and Richard Florida himself—have been criticized for what appears to be a change in Florida's prognosis for America's ailing Rust Belt cities. Florida's message was so quickly and enthusiastically adopted by cities because he argued that any city had the potential to become a vibrant, creative city with the adjustment infrastructure investments, policies, and consulting advice. A 2009 article, "The Ruse of the Creative Class", questions Florida's costly speaking engagements in struggling industrial cities in which he submission optimistic prognoses—and his more recent pronouncements that many American cities may never be saved in the wake of the Great Recession. The creative class thesis has also drawn criticisms for relying on inner city property development, gentrification, and urban labor markets reliant on low-wage service workers, particularly in the hospitality industry. Florida has called for benefit workers' wages to rise.
Creative Class Struggle, a Toronto-based collective, has brought these criticisms outside academic circles, challenging Florida's Creative Class theories as well as their widespread adoption into urban policy. The group manages an online clearinghouse for information about creative city strategies and policies, publishes a newsletter and other materials, and working to engage the media and public in critical discussion. In June 2009, Creative Class Struggle and art magazine Fuse organized a public forum in Toronto to debate these issues.