Richard Florida and the Cities of the Future

In Boston.com’s Boston Real Estate Now blog today, Rona Fischman attempts to calm the jitters of nervous renters. “Take note,” she writes, “you may be in the right place for our economic future.”

Fischman cites a recent article by Richard Florida in The Atlantic, entitled “The Great Reset,” which takes a long view of the world economy. Florida says that long depressions are opportunities for the economy to reset itself. “During these hard times, large numbers of people change their economic lives, taking the country into a new economic era.”

For example, in the so-called Long Depression of 1873 to 1896, America transformed from an agricultural economy to an urban and industrial one, and manufacturing skyrocketed when the recovery took hold. Later, the Great Depression triggered the rise of suburbia.

Now, “Richard Florida thinks the reset from this depression will lead to the growth of major economic centers, like the Washington to Boston corridor. Travel will be more dear and less common. And the most successful people will be those who are willing to move for their work. The suburb, and single-family home ownership, is too rigid for the fluid economy of the future America,” writes Fischman. Mobility will rule.

Fischman asks, Is a future economy dependent on mobility a good thing? And will the suburbs wither away? Big Think would like to know, what are you doing to stay nimble in a rapidly changing world?