Quotes by Richard Florida

“I have always, always wanted to live in Washington,”

“people are really smart and engaged. Theres no better place in the country to write serious nonfiction. Theres no better place to be public intellectuals.”

“L.A. draws highly skilled Asians and San Francisco draws highly skilled gays, but D.C. draws highly skilled everybody -- gays, Latins, Asians, Africans, scientists and so on, ... The trick will be to avoid pricing ourselves out of that creativity.”

“Youve got these housing markets that are completely out of whack. Theres no point of entry for young people anymore.”

“If an employer is serious about attracting and retaining talent, about making Wisconsin the kind of place they can do business over the long haul, theyve got to understand that the ability for all people to feel welcome is absolutely critical.”

“I think we do need more time off, but its not a government issue. It needs to be a social thing. People need to realize that working all the time and ignoring families is not healthy.”

“You know what they say, they say we want our kids back. We want them to stop leaving. What they dont say is that they want other peoples kids to move there.”

“Cities have realized that they can attract educated people and they dont need good schools to do it.”

“If the foreign talent cannot get into the United States or faces considerable delays in doing so, companies are in effect forced to go overseas to get it.”

“Minneapolis-St. Paul is competing for a very mobile group of people who have the world for their choices.”

Over time, this growing tendency of like marrying like will only reinforce clustering and geographic sorting along class lines, giving the emerging map of social, economic, and cultural segregation even greater permanence.

Its not that gays and diversity equal high technology. But if your culture is not such that it can accept difference, and uniqueness and oddity and eccentricity, you will not get high tech industry.