The creative class: Truth or urban myth

In the last decade, theories attempting to link culture, creativity and urban development are gaining more and more attention from the expert community and from urban policies decision makers. Strategies leaning on culture and creativity are expected to create the possibility to achieve a high level of competitiveness and compatibility with principles of sustainable development. The theoretician who has probably drawn most interest, positive and negative, is Richard Florida, a professor at the University in Toronto. This paper will analyze the concept and value implications of Florida's theory of the "creative class", with the goal to point out the positive, and that which should not be contemplated linearly as a model, but as an inspirational idea.