Summary of Richard Florida's The New Urban Crisis

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 Imagine that you could travel back in time and snatch a random New Yorker off the street in 1975. The New York he knew was a place in steep economic decline. However, many things would have dramatically changed. The city’s rebuilt financial district would be teeming not just with businesspeople but also with the sort of affluent families who would have made their homes in the suburbs back in his day. #2 I have lived in and around cities my entire life, and I have been an academic urbanist for more than three decades. I have seen cities decline and die, and I have seen them come back to life. But none of that prepared me for what we face today. #3 The New Urban Crisis is different from the older urban crisis of the 1960s and 1970s, which was defined by the economic abandonment of cities and their loss of economic function. It is shaped by deindustrialization and white flight, and it features a hollowing out of the city center. #4 The New Urban Crisis extends beyond urban centers and affects the suburbs as well. It is a result of deep economic inequality between superstar cities and other, declining cities. It also stems from the fact that superstar cities are experiencing extremely high and increasingly unaffordable housing prices, as well as staggering levels of inequality.