“Richard Florida’s exotic city, his creative city, depends on ghost people, working behind the scenes. Immigrants, people of colour. You want to know what his version of creative is? He’s the relocation agent for the global bourgeoisie. And the rest of us don’t matter.” | the creative class notion gaining traction. “I watched how, in consulting, these ideas took off and became trends,” she said. They suggested an easy fix to increasing urban ills, served with a smile. “It’s palatable, interesting and fun. It’s hard to compete with that.” | new era of socially tolerant capitalism. “But really, it’s a very celebratory and safe way of looking at capital accumulation,” she says. “People like cool places, sure; they’re positive stories. But there are people that get dispossessed, or removed, or erased in these narratives. If you’re a hospital worker, or a child care worker, you’re just erased completely” | “skilled people” – not artists, by any measure – “are key to urban success.”
http://www.thestar.com/article/656837