For the last time ...

I finished the Richard Florida piece yesterday; you'll see it tomorrow. It comes with a wince-inducing headline, but my hope is that it sets up the prevailing critical reaction to his work well enough to start talking about it -- for everyone, Florida included.

The piece is set up as a litany, with a response; Florida gets a lot of air, which is only fair -- but it's also, I think, air-clearing in terms of extrapolation and interpretation. It also gives a hint, maybe, of where Florida's Toronto experience is taking him. Most importantly, I think it opens the floor for the polemic gap to be bridged. I know Florida's open to it; we all should be, too. 

NB. that, as a web extra, we've included the transcript of my entire conversation with Florida. It'll be linked in the story online. The old newspaper form can be mercilessly reductive, forcing scribes to pare down to the bare essentials; the web's a perfect forum for the full breadth of the discussion, which I think you'll find illuminating. I know I did.