The European Creative Class and Regional Development: How Relevant Is Florida's Theory for Europe?

Since Florida published his provocative book, The rise of the creative class, in 2002 it has spurred an impressive amount of attention and occasionally, heated debate among academics and policy-makers. With this paper, we aim at pushing this debate further, but not by summarizing, reviewing or contributing to the various types of critiques of Florida (for a detailed critique, see Glaeser 2004; Malanga 2004; Peck 2005; Markusen 2006; Hansen et al. 2005; Asheim and Hansen 2008; Hansen 2007; see also Chapter 8, Oakley, this volume; Chapter 9, Mok, this volume). Instead we test and discuss the relevance of the core hypotheses in Florida's work for 445 European regions and thus contribute critical yet constructive insights into the relevance of Florida's work for Europe. The regions are distributed across Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and the UK.

There are good reasons to undertake this exercise in a European context especially as Florida is central to policy-making in Europe as well. The creative class (or classes) in Europe is carrier of different cultures, historical experiences, educational backgrounds and possibly, different value systems. The regions are embedded in different nations and super-national regimes of regulation, have different histories and cultures, and levels of urbanisation from the US. Thus, one can neither a priori assume that Florida's work will automatically be relevant in a European context, nor take it for granted that its degree of relevance is the same across the diverse European space.