Dubai Creative Class
Continuing the discussion on Pearl of Dubai about academic perspectives on the project of place branding in Dubai, I wanted to discuss the notion of urban creative classes as described by sociologist Richard Florida. Florida's book "The Rise of the Creative Class" considers people, rather than corporations, as the central building blocks of urban growth. While traditional studies have emphasized the factors driving firms to locate in one city over another, Florida focuses instead on what attracts people to settle in cities, and specifically what drives 'creative' people inclined to foster innovation and economic development, to cluster in certain places over others.
Florida argues that in America, creative people (a somewhat broad and vague label I would say) are human capital requirements for growth and that this sector of the population, numbering around 30% of the US workforce, tend to settle in "innovative, diverse, tolerant" places. While Florida's conception of this creative class can basically be understood as those who work in knowledge-based occupations, his thesis is that attracting this creative class is an imperative for US cities; those American cities with higher concentrations of this class also have higher growth rates, and higher levels of innovation, diversity, and tolerance.
In a place like Dubai, there is no shortage of workers given the current supply of jobs and economic opportunity. According to Florida's model, one would have to question how successful Dubai will be in the long-term at attracting this creative class to work in Dubai's growing knowledge industries like high-tech, financial services, legal, health care and business management? Will this class of workers feel satisfied by Dubai's level of innovation, diversity and tolerance? Or will other cities win out in this competition for the global creative class? It's too early to tell, but not too early to consider the current state of knowledge-based industries in Dubai as an indicator for what the future may hold.
Click here for Ms. Wikipedia's synopsis of this topic.
Florida argues that in America, creative people (a somewhat broad and vague label I would say) are human capital requirements for growth and that this sector of the population, numbering around 30% of the US workforce, tend to settle in "innovative, diverse, tolerant" places. While Florida's conception of this creative class can basically be understood as those who work in knowledge-based occupations, his thesis is that attracting this creative class is an imperative for US cities; those American cities with higher concentrations of this class also have higher growth rates, and higher levels of innovation, diversity, and tolerance.
In a place like Dubai, there is no shortage of workers given the current supply of jobs and economic opportunity. According to Florida's model, one would have to question how successful Dubai will be in the long-term at attracting this creative class to work in Dubai's growing knowledge industries like high-tech, financial services, legal, health care and business management? Will this class of workers feel satisfied by Dubai's level of innovation, diversity and tolerance? Or will other cities win out in this competition for the global creative class? It's too early to tell, but not too early to consider the current state of knowledge-based industries in Dubai as an indicator for what the future may hold.
Click here for Ms. Wikipedia's synopsis of this topic.
posted by Pearl of Dubai at 11:59 PM
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