ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews scholarly responses to the creative city thesis, which focuses specifically on the forms of diversity that are legitimized in Richard Florida's arguments. It contrasts the way that diversity functions in the creative city thesis with the way that Fincher and Iveson conceptualize diversity within a framework of recognition. The chapter discusses the politics of visibility, which It situate as a contemporary iteration of debates about die function of identity, difference, and claims to citizenship and access to urban space. Florida's creative city thesis received widespread attention in the popular media for casting urban diversity and tolerance as a central feature of urban and regional economic growth. Florida's focus on diversity extends only insofar as diversity's usefulness for economic development. To a certain extent, Florida's creative city thesis can be read as an opportunity to revisit the benefits of heterogeneity in urban centers. The adoption of creative city policies has implications for planners on a variety of fronts.
