Geeta Dayal: “Florida is no stranger to making oddball measurements; in his 2002 bestseller The Rise of the Creative Class, he relied heavily on markers like the "gay index" and the "bohemian index" to show how cities like San Francisco had more ingredients for a competitive creative economy than, say, Baton Rouge. If the numbers in Florida's new book The Flight of the Creative Class] are even slightly right—and if it befuddles you that America appears to be getting trounced by an island whose previous claims to innovation include Guinness, the IRA, and U2—we have every reason to be worried.”
I haven't read either of Florida's books mentioned above, but the ideas supposedly contained within them have been discussed in my office, which can be taken as some kind of measurement as to how influential they are. Dayal, at the end of the review, hints that Florida is a little too smooth in his delivery, but argues that the trends he points out—such as America post-9/11 taking a path that refuses entry to needed creatives—are worth considering when formulating urban planning and immigration policy.
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