IVS Seminar
Seminar with
Mark Lorenzen* and
Kristina Vaarst Andersen*
* Department of Industrial Dynamics and Strategy, Copenhagen Business School.
"The Danish Creative Class - What is the Relevance of Richard Florida's Thesis in a Danish Context?"
Abstract:
With his creative class thesis Richard Florida argues that a certain subsection of the labour market, the creative class, has become so important for innovation that companies will locate where ever it is found in ample supply. The people included in the creative class are in their turn attracted to places where high levels of tolerance allow all sorts of diversity to flourish. The consequence is that tolerant places attract talented people who are the building blocks of technological innovation. This is what Florida calls the three T’s: tolerance, talent and technology.
The creative class thesis is fostered in USA and successfully tested in Canada. A group of researchers from eight European countries are now analysing whether this thesis has any relevance in a European context. First step has been a mapping of the creative class in Europe, the second a qualitative analysis of the dynamics behind the distribution and effect of the creative class. The Danish analysis shows great variance between the share of creative class people in municipalities and city-regions. At the same time the dynamics attracting the creative class to different areas are diverse. Some city regions do function as predicted by Florida, others do not and some do to a certain degree.
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