Or the Creative Class vs. Sewer Socialism. I tend to side with Kotkin in this debate (does that make me a socialist?), but Richard Florida often claims his views are misrepresented. Florida sounds a lot better if this is, as the author of the article suggests, his fundamental message:
[C] ities must move away from funding corporate tax breaks and big-ticket white elephants designed to stimulate the economy. (In one recent example, Washington, DC, convinced the Montreal Expos to settle down by offering to build a new ballpark, raise business taxes and sign over all potential profits to the team’s future owner, all on the public dime.) Instead, says Florida, cities need to promote grassroots innovation and small-scale creativity, conditions that have spawned some of the biggest business successes of the past twenty years.