Madison among the nation's creative classiest?
Madison and two other Midwest cities are among the top 20 leading metro areas with a creative class workforce – according to one Richard Florida.
It's been a little while since Volume One threw out the phrase “creative class.” In case you've forgotten, it was coined by Richard Florida, author of the global best-seller The Rise of the Creative Class. The phrase describes a socioeconomic class many believe is the key to new growth in our modern economy.
Florida recently put together a list of the top 20 metros with the largest concentrations of creative class workforce based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those workforce numbers included professions in the fields of science and technology, design and architecture, management and education, arts, law and healthcare.
Madison, Rochester, Minn., and Ann Arbor, Mich. all made the list with more than 38% of their workforce in the creative class.
Florida also ranked cities for creative class with data from 1999. The top ranking was about 35% and now the top ranking is nearly 50 percent. With three Midwestern cities on the list, who knows where Sconnie bergs like ours will end up in the next decade?
