… is because of you innovative people. You have more freedom to choose where you’ll work and live. And many
innovative people choose to live near each other. This choice creates an increasingly “spiky” 
rather than a flattening world that Tom Friedman sees. So argues Richard Florida (for reasons different than Joseph Stiglitz), author of a highly-anticipated, controversial book out next month, Who’s Your City? It’s an outgrowth of this article. He believes that this growing trend will affect your work, friendship circle and happiness. After all, along with choosing a spouse and a career, choosing where you’ll live are the major life choices for most people – and each choice affects the other. (Florida chose Toronto.)
When innovative people cluster together, they increase each other’s productivity – making certain areas “spike” or thrive while others atrophy. Researchers at the Santa Fe Institute call this effect “urban metabolism.” (Where do you live?)
Florida’s last two books were bestsellers, The Rise of the Creative Class and then The Flight of the Creative Class. In an interview with U.S. News and World Report’s Bret Schulte, Richard Florida:
• Warns that, “The spikes of economic activity are spreading out. It’s not China we’re competing with, it’s Shanghai. It’s not India we’re competing with, it’s Bangalore. These countries are even spikier than the U.S. and Europe.”
• Worries about the deep “valleys” – the geographic areas facing economic slumps because they don’t attract the creative people who can choose where they want to live.
• Describes how a decision to move close to innovative people like you may uproot you from family and friends.
Yet there are those who continue to hotly disagree with Florida.
See how, “the Boston Globe compared cities with the highest foreclosure rates to the “creative class. Then
use National Geographic’s guide to Adventure Towns, Find Your Spot or Bert Sperling’s Best Places survey to find your best place to live.
