The Flight of the Creative Class

By R Florida

HarperBusiness, 2005

$39.95

In his groundbreaking book The Rise of the Creative Class(HarperCollins Publishers, 2002) Florida identified a new social class whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and new creative content. This group includes scientists, engineers, architects, educators, writers, artists and entertainers – all of whom are increasingly moving from country to country and having a notable impact on their economies. He showed how organisations could develop a local creative class and ways to retain it.

This follow-up work argues that if America –which Florida maintains is still the world’s centre of ingenuity in many ways – continues to make it harder for some of the world’s most talented students and workers to work there, they’ll leave. This is not exactly revolutionary stuff and Florida devotes a significant portion of his analysis to defending his earlier book’s argument regarding “technology, talent, and tolerance”.

In The Flight of the Creative Class,Florida attributes the American brain drain not simply to verifiable factors, but argues it is largely driven by their demise as an open, tolerant society. He sets this case out well, but it is only relevant to Australia and our own brain drain issues up to a point.