Wilson & Keil - The real creative class
Wilson D. & Keil R. (2008). The real creative class. Social & Cultural Geography, 9 (8): 841-847.
The authors conclude that the creative class concept is not really about discerning and nurturing the truest creative class in Western cities today, false consciousness and deliberate ambiguity intercede. Rather, this thesis is about something else: finding another rationale to privilege in public policy the desires and aspirations of capital and the affluent. Indeed, this ideology is really nothing new. It is in line with previous fast-track policy approaches to replenishing these cities: urban renewal, urban regeneration, the new federalism, public–private partnership alliances, and enterprise zone mania. In this vision of the creative class, the white affluent are the historic and current bearers of civility, tradition, and good culture. In inference, they have not merely shaped all that is good about the city, this polity owes them. Ultimately, Florida fails to stand apart from dominant understandings of class and race that has deep roots in the contemporary mainstream imagining. Under the guise of best city growth and development, restructuring strategies and practices, one more time, privilege cultural and economic elites.
Wilson & Keil “The real creative class”