03/27/2017
Urban studies expert Florida (The Great Reset), who first gained acclaim studying the ascendancy of the “creative class,” now explores the broader effects of its rise in this timely, data-rich, and accessible work. Florida notes that while people fare better economically in large, dense cities, those cities are also experiencing rising inequality, housing costs, and economic and racial segregation. Moreover, these problems are spreading to the suburbs, the onetime model for improved living standards. These divisions are particularly strong in “superstar cities” such as New York, San Francisco, and London, where concentrated wealth makes the urban core inaccessible to all but the most privileged people. A series of maps show how service workers’ neighborhoods have been steadily pushed to the periphery. This worrisome dynamic isn’t confined to North America and Western Europe, as Florida’s research shows. He recommends changing tax schemes to reflect the value of urban land, rather than the property developed on top of it; intensifying support for mass transit; increasing affordable rental housing in urban core areas; and focusing on schools and better wage conditions in the poorest neighborhoods. These prescriptions are all sound but—in the current political climate—particularly difficult to achieve. Agent: Jim Levine, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (Apr.)
"Richard Florida offers a brilliant assessment of the varied and evolving challenges facing our cities today. At a time when cities are more important than ever to our economic and political future, The New Urban Crisis is essential reading for urban leaders and all city-dwellers."—Richard M. Daley, former mayor of Chicago
"The New Urban Crisis bracingly confronts [the] tension between big-city elites and the urban underclass."—Wall Street Journal
"[Richard Florida] vividly expose[s] how gentrification, followed by rising housing costs, concentrated affluence, and glaring inequality has pushed the displaced into deteriorating suburbs far from mass transit, employment, services, and decent schools.... [The New Urban Crisis is] nuanced and proposes solutions."—Washington Post
"Florida draws subtle, thoughtful inferences from his research, and he writes in slick, approachable prose.... Throughout, the author remains an idealistic, perceptive observer of cities' transformations. A sobering account of inequality and spatial conflict rising against a cultural backdrop of urban change."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Urban planners should consider the case being made for the need to address a new urban crisis. A thought-provoking work for those interested in all stages of urban planning and placemaking."
—Library Journal
"The New Urban Crisis deserves to stand alongside Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century as an essential diagnosis of our contemporary ills, and a clear-eyed prescription of how to cure them."—Steven Johnson
"Richard Florida demonstrates again that he is one of the most discerning (and provocative) observers of the great metropolitan migrations of the past 60 years."
—Governor John Hickenlooper, Colorado
"Cites are engines for prosperity and progress, but it's essential that the benefits extend far and wide. Florida proposes promising ideas for building stronger cities that offer greater opportunities for all."—Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City
"Richard Florida is the great pioneer thinker who first explained how the influx of creative people was reviving cities. Now he takes the next step: looking for ways to make this urbanism more inclusive."—Walter Isaacson
"This is the book we have been waiting for. Richard Florida is the greatest American urbanist of our time....This is an indispensable read for policy makers, students, educators, and all urban dwellers alike."
—Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles
"A sweeping narrative of the most significant human movement of our times: global urbanization. Richard Florida lays out with unassailable facts and clear vision the convergence of an urgent human development—the drive for more livable cities and the quest for a more sustainable planet. Clear, compelling, and full of vision."
—Governor Martin O'Malley, Maryland
"Like the superstar cities it describes, this book is dense, complex and stimulating. Florida's well-researched and fluent exposé of inequality is a wake-up call to all the major actors engaged in planning, designing and managing cities in the 21st century."
—Ricky Burdett, Professor of Urban Studies, London School of Economics
"The New Urban Crisis is well worth reading for the original research, clear-headed critique, and the skilled analysis of solid data."—New York Journal of Books
"The New Urban Crisis is underpinned by reams of data breezily and readably presented."—Miami Herald
03/15/2017
There is a new urban crisis impacting cities and suburbs, maintains Florida (director, Martin Prosperity Inst., Univ. of Toronto; The Rise of the Creative Class). The author considers such issues as increasing inequality, rising housing prices, economic and racial segregation, spatial inequality, and entrenched poverty. He concludes that a "winner-take-all urbanism" is creating a growing gulf between "superstar cities" that have high concentrations of talented people and economic resources, and areas that do not. This "clustering force" is seen as creating "areas of concentrated affluence and concentrated poverty," and leading to the shrinking of middle-class neighborhoods. Florida offers several solutions, along with supporting documentation, that will ensure growth and prosperity for a larger segment of the population. Some of these ideas include building more affordable rental housing in central locations, switching from a property tax to a land value tax, and having the minimum wage reflect the local cost of living. Social theorists may find fault with the conclusions and proposed remedies, but urban planners should consider the case being made for the need to address a new urban crisis. VERDICT A thought-provoking work for those interested in all stages of urban planning and placemaking.—Karen Venturella Malnati, Union Cty. Coll. Libs, Cranford, NJ
2017-02-06
A prominent urban theorist examines the hidden impacts of gentrification and innovation on (mostly) American cities.Prolific sociologist Florida (Director, Martin Prosperity Institute/Univ. of Toronto; The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity, 2010, etc.) builds on his earlier work about the "creative" economy to argue that his optimism about cities' recoveries from the era of white flight and neglect must now be tempered with recognition of "a dark side to the urban resurgence and back-to-the-city movement." He wryly acknowledges backlash against his own ideas and the gentrifying takeovers of blue-collar areas: "What troubled me most of all was the decline and disappearance of the great middle-class neighborhoods." Florida organizes his discussion in thematic chapters, trying to nonjudgmentally demonstrate how well-intentioned elites have managed to repair once-blighted cityscapes while still harming their cultural vernacular, adding further stressors to the lives of the working poor and minority groups in now-coveted neighborhoods. In "The Inequality of Cities," he explores how an economic recovery fueled by tech and media "creatives" inevitably worsens inequality, noting, "our most liberal cities also number among the most unequal." In "The Bigger Sort" and "The Patchwork Metropolis," the author presents data to suggest that racial and class segregation are actually hardening, particularly in glamorous tech cities (San Francisco) and so-called global cities (New York), due to housing prices. Florida also explores the disturbing irony that classic urban pathologies of violence, drugs, and malaise have migrated to cities' suburban belts: "Large swaths of them are places of economic decline and distress." Florida draws subtle, thoughtful inferences from his research, and he writes in slick, approachable prose overly studded with phrases that aspire to be intellectual buzzwords (the title is repeated frequently). Throughout, the author remains an idealistic, perceptive observer of cities' transformations. A sobering account of inequality and spatial conflict rising against a cultural backdrop of urban change.
The author of THE RISE OF THE CREATIVE CLASS delves into the economic complexities of cities and how they perpetuate both opportunity and inequality through various practices and policies. Traber Burns does an admirable job narrating a work that grapples with being engaging. Florida’s analysis is fascinating as he articulates the growing tension between the working class and the creative class, while providing insights into the growing populist movement that gave rise to Trump. But the work is filled with an abundance of numerical data in the form of statistics, charts, and quantitative comparisons. With his slightly raspy voice, Burns does the best he can with such information overload, using good pacing and emphasis to make the prose as clear and easy to follow as possible. L.E. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
