Creative Class Theories

The connections between the development of creative industries and the growth of cities was noted by several sources in the first decade of the twenty-first century, but explanations relating to the nature of the link have thus far proven to be insufficient. The two dominant “scripts” were those of “creative clusters” and “creative/cities/creative class” theories, but both have significant limitations arising from how they privilege amenities-led, supply driven accounts of urban development and how they fail to adequately situate cities in wider global circuits of culture and economic production. The author proposes that the emergent field of cultural economic geography provides some insights that redress these lacunae, particularly in the …show more content…
As a result, the old New York-Los Angeles rivalry is changing, at least on the East Coast side of the equation. No longer do in-the-know New Yorkers reflexively parrot sneers like the old Woody Allen line, that the only cultural advantage of Los Angeles is the right turn on red. Indeed, Los Angeles has seemingly become the flight fantasy of choice for the likes of Ms. Turner, who insists that anything good she was giving up in overpriced, overstressed Brooklyn is already in place on the booming east side of Los Angeles: the in-season Zambian coffee outposts, the galleries, the vintage clothing boutiques. “L.A. is better than it used to be, New York is worse than it used to be,” Ms. Lebowitz said at a recent Vanity Fair party for the Tribeca Film Festival. The quality-of-life campaigns under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg swept away so much that was gritty, quirky or exceptional about the city, she said, and as a result, “New York has become vastly more suburban,” while