It starts with opportunity.
Not just bold economic capacity, but a culture that nurtures creative action and game-changing enterprise.
These environments are creative ecosystems where entrepreneurs and employees alike can maximize their potential–where the number of patents filed is high, for instance, or where the high-tech sector is expanding.
The second component: innovation.
They invest in physical, cultural, and intellectual infrastructure that will sustain growth. “The real forces for change in America and around the world are the mayors and the local communities” says Florida, now a professor of public policy at George Mason University.
Finally, they have energy. Lots of it.
That ethereal thing that happens when creative people collect in one place. The indicators can seem obscure: number of ethnic restaurants, or the ratio of live-music lovers to cable-TV subscribers. But they point to environments where fresh thinking stimulates action and, by the way, attracts new talent in a virtuous cycle of creativity.
Source: The Creative Class
Related: Fast Cities 2011 / Fast Company magazine
