Richard Florida

Paul Graham speculates that startups may herald a new era of political economy. He notes that startups are highly clustered in certain cities. And he's concerned about what this means for society. The spiky nature of our era - evident in everything from startup clustering to rising economic and geographic inequality - is among the most critical questions for national and international policy makers over the coming decades. More »

A reader writes: "Another issue that is starting to arise outside of your writing is the future of food production. I would like you to consider how your view of future urban areas would interact with increasing commodity prices for basic food stuffs." I asked Betsy Donald, a geographer at Queens University who has done extensive research on the creative food economy, about this. More »

Corporate headquarters are both heavily concentrated in and very specialized by region, according to a new analysis by Scott Pennington of the Martin Prosperity Institute. Eighty-five percent of the headquarters of the largest companies in the U.S. and Canada are concentrated in a dozen or so mega-regions. More »

A new study in the medical journal Pediatrics (h/t Planetizen) finds that community and the built environment - everything from walkable streets to the location of schools - have big effects on the health of our kids. An estimated 32% of American children are overweight, and physical inactivity contributes to this high prevalence of overweight.This policy statement highlights how the built environment of a community affects children's opportunities for physical … More »

Green chutes optimism is misplaced. The economic crisis continues to deepen at a pace that is on par with or worse than that of the Great Depression, according to an updated analysis by economists Barry Eichengreen and Kevin O'Rourke. They conclude that even though "trade and stock markets have shown some improvement without reversing the overall conclusion - today's crisis is at least as bad as the Great Depression" (pointer via Mark Thoma).Their first graph… More »

Jane Jacobs long ago argued that cities are the cradles of civilization and of economic development and that density and human interaction hold the key to economic progress. The findings of a major new study published in Science finds that density is a key factor in the emergence of modern human behavior.Increasing population density, rather than boosts in human brain power, appears to have catalysed the emergence of modern human behaviour, according to a new study… More »

That's the overall rate of unemployment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' newly released U-6 measure which includes "marginally attached workers" as well as those who work part-time for economic reasons. That's quite a bit higher than the widely reported 9.4 percent figure also released today. And, unemployment continues to fall unevenly by gender, race, class, and occupation. Race: The unemployment rate for whites was 8.6 percent compared to 12.7… More »

The unemployment rate surged to 9.4 percent today. But unemployment continues to fall heavily on certain demographic and class groups and in certain cities and regions of the country, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Greater Detroit still posts the highest rate for large regions (those with a million or more people), 13.6 percent, down from 14 percent in March. Los Angeles, Tampa Bay, Las Vegas, and San Jose also have rates above… More »

The economic crisis continues to reshape our economic geography. Job losses at restructured automakers GM and Chrysler have been highly concentrated in older Rustbelt centers as this NYT map shows. More »

Silicon Valley, according to a new Milken Institute report on North America's high-tech regions. But Seattle, Cambridge, and D.C. are among the nation's leading high-tech hot spots. The report also charts the tech turnarounds in Rustbelt regions like Kalamazoo, Michigan and Scranton-Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, as well as documenting the rise of leading high-tech regions in Canada and Mexico. Here's the top ten: Score 1 1 San Jose - Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA… More »

Manpower CEO, Jeff Joerres talks to the Financial Times about the crisis and the possibility of a new brain drain in the U.S. and Europe. More »

Andrew notes the real (positive) trend in the president's approval ratings. And Chris Bowers speculates, given recent (and ongoing) demographic shifts, that even Michael Dukakis would have won the 2008 election. Demographic shifts do seem to be on the Democrats' side. More »

Jon Rauch draws a connection between introverts and bloggers (via Andrew Sullivan). So I asked Cambridge personality psychologist, Jason Rentfrow about it. Rentfrow commented and sent along a link to a study on bloggers and personality. More »

My MPI colleague Kevin Stolarick lists the nation's most economically "resilient" cities over at Kiplinger's. His rankings are based on: current employment trends, historical employment, and unemployment performance; how the region did when national unemployment increased; the share of professional, knowledge, and creative jobs; and cost of living. More »

Here's a map of the human development of U.S. counties based on factors like income, education, literacy, and heath (via (Map Scroll). There's been some concern about the utility of such combined indexes, still this map provides a powerful visualization America's enormous social, economic, and geographic divide. More »

My colleague Dan Silver crunches the numbers and finds that while Nashville may be at the top of the commercial music pyramid, it lags on genre diversity. Nashville takes fifth place in terms of popularity of its acts, according to Silver's analysis of MySpace fans, behind L.A., Manhattan, Chicago, and Atlanta, and just ahead of Brooklyn. It falls to 25th in terms of total (MySpace) acts behind Portland, Austin, and Miami, not to mention leaders like L.A.,… More »

This NYT graphic summarizes key findings from Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz's intriguing study of how taking time off effects the career prospects of various professional groups. It's not surprising that MBAs - especially those who log long hours in finance and consulting - take the biggest career hit. For many the strategy is to front-load their careers, working hard and making boat loads of money when they are relatively young which they can enjoy later on in… More »

New York Magazine's Michael Crowley profiles NYC Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan's effort to take back the city's streets from the automobile (pointer via Brian Knudsen). [E]ven though the Broadway plan has been pitched as a way to ameliorate traffic, it's apparent when touring Times Square with Sadik-Khan that the planning problem that most animates her is not car congestion but people congestion. 'This is a plan to pedestrianize a street, not to… More »

Felix Salmon says there's no end in sight for the housing bust, pointing to the latest edition of the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Housing prices are off 36 percent since their 2006 peak. Housing prices have fallen back to 2002 levels in nominal terms but, as Business Week's Prashant Ghopal notes, they've plunged to 2000 levels when adjusted for inflation. Calculated Risk (with great graphics as usual) predicts another 10-20 percent drop, More »

Michael Lind argues New York and London are in for the biggest fall: "New York, London, and other financial centers were heavily dependent on financial-sector profits. Throw in the technology-driven collapse of the publishing and broadcast industries headquartered in such places, and those cities are likely to suffer devastating blows." But not so fast... More »