Rating: 
Summary: Insightful!
Review: The good news is, Richard Florida's book recognizes the growing economic and sociological impact of creativity. The bad news is that in just two years, it has lost some of its gloss. The collapse of the bull market, the popping of the dot.com bubble, the 9/11 trauma, each took some shine off of the creative economy, with its casual dress days, flexible schedules and free rides. But even though this appraisal occasionally sounds quaint, we believe that the book's faith in the transforming economic and social power of creativity, its broad view, and its excellent references and quotations make it worth recommending.
Rating:
Summary: "Demonstates how creative types shape our communities"
Review: This book has had a tremendous buzz around it since it was published earlier this year, and has sold well in the Birmingham area. And that makes sense, because according to Florida's book, more and more people are living like traditional creative types such as artists and writers, and that shapes our communities and economies. Birmingham actually scores well in national rankings of "creative cities."
Rating: 
Summary: a relic of the bubble economy
Review: This book presents an interesting concept but the author doesn't tell us what to do with this information. He suggests that the "creative class" must become conscious of their identity as a class and begin to act in concert, but he doesn't outline a method for doing this. One would think that he would want to provide a platform for the unification and interaction of a class which he has identified.The author suggests that municipalities would be wise to structure their geography to attract creative class individuals. Another approach, which he does not consider, would be a strategy to develop more creative class individuals from the resident population. Unlike other natural resources, which are finite, creative class capital can be generated by educational opportunities and personal development. An interesting thought occurred to me while reading this book: Dr. Florida describes creative class individuals as uninterested in group conformity. Meanwhile, the major political parties become increasingly polarized and intolerant of dissent within the ranks, sidelining independent-thinking "moderates." Thus public policy is being developed by parties who have driven the creative class out from their midst. This, more than anything, may be the most critical issue for the creative class to confront.
Rating: 
Summary: pseudo-intellectual crap
Review: This reads like an academic's attempt to achieve tenure. A lots of excerpts from other people's work, a lot of grand statements, backed (at best) by anecdotal information. Not new, not insightful, not even entertaining.
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