Vol.:(0123456789) Journal of Housing and the Built Environment (2019) 34:647–649 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-018-9632-3 1 3 BOOK REVIEW Richard Florida: The new urban crisis: how our cities are increasing inequality, deepening segregation, and failing the middle class—and what we can do about it Basic Books, 2017, USD 20.00, 352pp, ISBN: 978-0-46-507974-2 Francisco Vergara‑Perucich 1 Received: 21 July 2018 / Accepted: 18 September 2018 / Published online: 21 September 2018 © Springer Nature B.V. 2018 Richard Florida earned reputation in urban planning thanks to two masterpieces: The Rise of the Creative Class (2002) and Cities and the Creative Class (2005). These works gave Florida sufcient infuence to inspire urban policies in cities such as Pittsburgh, Cincin- nati, Iowa, Denver, Michigan and Austin. His contributions become a phenomenon labelled as the Floridization of cities related to fostering the installation of creative industries in urban centres to revitalise these areas. He elaborated methods for urban studies such as the coolness factor or the bohemia index which have been used throughout the globe. After 15 years from presenting his seminal work, Richard Florida (2017) published The New Urban Crisis in which underlies an apology to those cities that implemented Florida’s crea- tive class’ through urban policy triggering problems that, indeed, this book is addressing with new researches and diferent approaches to pressing urban questions. The aim of the book is presenting empirical evidence to sustain the argument that the urban crisis is the central crisis of our era. Florida illustrates the critical dimensions of the crisis by outlining strategies that may serve to produce more inclusive urbanism. Between the lines of the book lies a regret for the efects considered as consequences of the imple- mentation of the creative class, such as social segmentation in cities, the gentrifcation, segregation and exclusion of middle-class families from urban centres. In this volume, he critically investigates its causes. The prologue delivers a critical assessment of his previous works, where Florida admits his excessive optimism (naïveness perhaps) while believing that the creative class automatically would revitalise cities as a whole. Reading this new book discards the existence of some invisible hand (a la Adam Smith) in urban development pro- cesses. Urbanisation processes are not neutral and require strict regulations for ensuring the provision of what Florida named as urbanism for all. The New Urban Crisis may serve as a record of Richard Florida’s contradictions but also a track of his progress as a prominent urbanist, shifting from an author that coins catchy ideas to a critical urbanist * Francisco Vergara-Perucich jose.vergara@ucn.cl 1 Departamento de Economia, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Av. Angamos 0610, Antofagasta, Chile