The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class—And What We Can Do About It

“The New Urban Crisis”  is a book about growing inequality and isolation in cities and how greater social, educational and economic opportunity can and should be created. The author suggests ambitious reforms at the federal, state and local levels.

Florida is an economics professor and author of a popular 2002 book, “The Rise of the Creative Class.”

The “big ideas” for Urban Atlanta:

• The “creative class” approach to economic development succeeded but brought with it unintended consequences for poor, working-class and middle-class families in Urban Atlanta.
• Cities need people of all income levels. Here’s just one example: Cities that do not have neighborhoods where young artists can live and work become lifeless and boring.
• There are large economic forces at work in the social mobility problem, including automation and globalization. These are beyond cities’ abilities to solve. Some solutions must come from the federal government. 
• Many of the things urbanists support can help, but only if they result in cities becoming more affordable. Urbanists and their allies in state and local government must be more deliberate in pursuing affordability and social mobility.
• Important allies in the effort to increase social mobility are Urban Atlanta’s school systems. We need school systems to make their largest pre-K and K-12 investments in places where the economic needs are greatest.