Quote of the Day: Richard Florida on The New Spatial Fix

feininger new york city photo
Andreas Feininger

Richard Florida writes about the decline of the sprawling exurb toward urban neighbourhoods and inner suburbs, suggesting it isn't just about the price of gas.

"But what's happening here goes a lot deeper than the end of cheap oil. We are now passing through the early development of a wholly new geographic order – what geographers call “the spatial fix” – of which the move back toward the city is just one part.

Suburbanization was the spatial fix for the industrial age – the geographic expression of mass production. Low-cost mortgages, massive highway systems and suburban infrastructure projects fuelled the industrial engine of postwar capitalism, propelling demand for cars, appliances and all sorts of industrial goods.

The creative economy is giving rise to a new spatial fix and a very different geography – the contours of which are only now emerging.

Rising fuel costs are one thing, but in today's idea-driven economy, it's time costs that really matter. With the constant pressure to be more efficient and to innovate, it makes little sense to waste countless collective hours commuting. So the most efficient and productive regions are the ones in which people are thinking and working – not sitting in traffic."

More at ::The Creative Class

More Richard Florida in TreeHugger:
Richard Florida on Tor-Buf-Chester
Making the Rust Belt Work Again
Does Bicycle Friendliness Contribute to a City’s Economic ...
For Economic Development - Buffalo New York Thinking Jobs Per ...