The Great Reset is a North American financial crisis tinged refresh of Richard Florida’s earlier work Who is your city? which looks at the way the knowledge economy and the creative classes who work within it tend to cluster in certain cities. Florida sets the scene by looking at the way two different financial recessions had affected the American landscape. Changes in 1870, saw emigration from the countryside to the cities to participate in the US version of the industrial revolution.
The 1930s with the rise of the motor car was the start of the suburb as an easier commute to work and a more pleasant environment than the inner city.
The financial crisis Florida posits will herald a reinvention of the city. Young people in the creative classes no longer own a car and have different aspirations including a lower propensity to buy luxury goods; they want to live closer to work and amenities. In an energy poor future local will become much more important, so high density urban living will happen in city clusters where the knowledge economies congregate.
Whilst interesting The Great Reset felt as if Richard Florida was phoning this book in rather than shaking the tree. Whilst his ideas were interesting there wasn’t the sense of discovery there. Secondly the book much more more North American centric than before. If you’ve read Who is your city? leave this one on the shelf and walk on by.
