Richard Florida describes himself as "card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool urbanist" in one of his columns on suburbs that appeared in the Wall Street Journal back in October 2010. This is the professor who writes from creativeclass.com (though he stopped writing a column there in December 2010) and The Atlantic. His basic premise is that higher population density is the key to the future of the U.S. economy, and, further, he predicts suburbs will be the slums of the future.
He would describe Licking County, Ohio as much like an "edge city" where one can live, work, and shop without ever going to the nearby metropolitan center city of Columbus. And he would decry that sort of living.
Kotkin heaps praise on places like ours, labeling places like ours as "compact, suburban villages" and "greenurbia." Kotkin sees millenials and many immigrants, indeed 80% of the next hundred million Americans, as wanting to live in the suburbs.
It's no surprise that many point to Richard Florida as a voice in opposition to that of Joel Kotkin, and vice versa.
It's also no surprise that Richard Florida doesn't get any mention in my column either. Except today.
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