Richard Florida - Whos Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

S O, WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO MOVE TO TORONTO?

Ive been fortunate enough to see a lot of this great country since relocating from the United States with my wife, Rana, in September 2007. But no matter where I go, from the biggest cities to the countless smaller towns Ive visited, people ask me the same thing: Why?

Im like a lot of people. My first and foremost reason for moving was a joba great one at the University of Torontos Rotman School of Management. Any academic would be tempted by the opportunity to work with a top-notch team of researchers and stable funding. So when Roger Martin, the schools dean, asked me whether I would head up the new Martin Prosperity Institute, I said, Absolutely.

Some people might argue that my decision is proof that jobs are more important than place, that the decision about what you do for a living comes first and where you live follows. Not so fast. One of the main points of this book is that decisions about what you do and where you livework and placeare not either/or. Increasingly they go together.

I would not have taken the job without regard to its locationand I would seriously counsel anyone else against doing so. We all know that an exciting and challenging job is one of the keys to a happy and productive life. My research has shown me that challenging jobs are increasingly concentrated in a handful of dynamic places like Toronto.

Its also a great city. I say that not only because I have long admired Torontos guardian angel, the late activist and theorist Jane Jacobs, or because I had visited Toronto many times and grown to quite like it. That is, my high regard for Toronto is not incidental. I know its a great city because the work Ive been doing for the past decade or so has shown me as much.

In fact, that thinking process is what led to this book. After growing up in New Jersey and moving around the U.S. for graduate school and academic jobs, I settled in Pittsburgh, where I taught at Carnegie Mellon University for seventeen years. While I lived there, I wrote The Rise of the Creative Class, a book that explores, among other things, how places that are tolerant, diverse, and open to innovation attract creative talentthe people who work in fields as different as technology and entertainment, and finance, entrepreneurship and the arts. Their work is increasingly what drives innovation and economic growth. After writing that book, I explored dozens upon dozens of cities across the world. And after living in one place for almost two decades, I was starting to wonder if there might be another place out there for me.

So one day I made a list. This was long before I contemplated writing Whos Your City? It was an off-the-top-of-my-head list, scribbled on a crumpled piece of paper. Across the top I wrote the names of cities where I might like to live: New York City (I had grown up right across the river in New Jersey and gone to graduate school at Columbia University); Washington, DC (where I had wanted to live since my early 20sa consequence of my great interest in public policy); Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco; Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, and a few others.

I limited my list to North American cities with great universitiesIm a professor first and foremost. Then I sketched out other key categorieslifestyle, housing cost and quality, arts and culture, career opportunities, climate, career development, and so on. Ultimately, I rated the categories to see which city was the one for me. Two tied for first place: DC and Toronto. A dead heat. That was in 2004.

As it turned out, I moved to DC, and took a position at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia. I got some great research projects underway, spent time at DC-based think-tanks, wrote a bit for magazines that are headquartered there (like The Atlantic and The Washington Monthly), and generally went about a life I quite enjoyed. I was also lucky enough to get married. I was happy.

But then Roger called on that crisp fall day in 2006 and began to tell me about the Martin Prosperity Institute. At the end of the call he said, You dont have to decide now but if we raise the money, will you come? I didnt hesitate. I said, Yes, but let me consult my wife and get right back to you. But I knew what she would say. And I knew why.