Richard Florida burst into the mainstream with 2002’s The Rise of the Creative Class. Over the past decade, his ideas about what drives economic growth have spawned new policy prescriptions in American cities. Florida’s most controversial claim is that the urban “creative class” — which he says comprises 35 percent of the US labor force — is at the root of new economic growth.

For Florida, the “economic revolution” of the new creative economy is occurring in tandem with an “urban revolution.” Major metropolitan areas, he maintains, have become the de facto form of social organization in the post-industrial era; they are the place where the creative class lives, works, and most importantly, clusters together.

The essence of Florida’s idea is simple: creative class prosperity, located within the economic and social structures unique to the urban environment, attracts new waves of creative class immigration, in turn expanding urban colonies of prosperity. Thus, cities provide the scaffolding not only for the day-to-day life and happiness of the creative class; they are the engines of prosperity itself.