What follows is a short precis of a review of Richard Florida's book 'The
New Urban Crisis' by Sam Wetherill titled 'Richard Florida is Sorry'. For
the full text see
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/08/new-urban-crisis-review-richard-florida . I
look forward to reading the book.
Wetherill's review identifies issues in Florida's new findings that are
potentially significant to this PhD-design community
The back drop is that research by Richard Florida into creative cities and
creative classes sparked a massive expansion of support for creative
industries and creative education. Much of the foundation of design
education and PhD research in design owes its expanded funding to the
political and social changes shaped by Florida's books on Creative Cities.
Florida's analyses (supported in spirit by many perspectives on the
writings of Jane Jacobs) were that the creative classes (artists, designers,
musicians, engineering designers and other tech workers) were the foundation
of new economic growth to benefit all.
Wetherill reports that now Florida has identified that he was mistaken in
almost all aspects of his earlier claims about the benefits of creative
classes and creative cities.
Instead of benefits, what Florida has identified has happened as a result of
creative industry expansion is economic, social and cultural destruction of
societies and the urban landscape; through e.g. property speculation,
increases in income disparity and mass displacement.
The expansion of creative industries education in universities and the gloss
of the creative industries in the public media has been to a large extent
based on Florida's earlier 'Creative Cities' findings, that in his new book,
'The New Urban Crisis' that he now identifies as mistaken or wrong.
Reflecting, Florida's work drove a not so critical enthusiasm for an
unevidenced wishfulness that creative industries were central to improving
outcomes in society. In fact, the reality and evidence of now seems the
benefits of the creative industries movement accrued to the wealthy at the
expense of the poor.
In parallel, a similar illusion happened with Jane Jacob's work and the
development of the New Urbanism planning movement that was tightly linked to
creative industries development. Over the last few years evidence has
demonstrated that some claims of New Urbanism with its mixed-use permeable
planning arrangements are false. For example, from a crime prevention
designers point of view, New Urban mixed-use permeable environments have
increased levels of crime rather than reduced crime as commonly claimed.
There have been earlier warning bells. An example is a critique in 2007 at
IASDR07
https://www.sd.polyu.edu.hk/iasdr/proceeding/papers/The%20Problems%20with%20
Design%20Education%20in%20the%20UK.pdf . Another example is Talbot's review
of Don Norman's critique of Design Education in 2011
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/423552/the-problem-with-design-education/
.
Together, these suggest that a deeper and more critical look needs to be
taken of all aspects of the creative disciplines and a review made of
taken for granted and potentially biased assumptions about the creative
classes. Central to this, I suggest, is potentially some heart searching
critique of the role of design education and research in universities, and
their potential for damaging rather than benefiting society.
Regards,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love
PMACM, MISI, MAISA, FDRS, AMIMechE
Director
Design Out Crime & CPTED Centre
Perth, Western Australia
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
<http://www.designoutcrime.org/> www.designoutcrime.org
+61 (0)4 3497 5848
==
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
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