How The Crash Will Reshape America

Can The American Workforce Become Nimble Again? 

Richard Florida, author of The Creative Class and The World Is Spiky, writes a compelling analysis of "The Crash" in the current issue of The Atlantic. Florida says one lesson learned has been obvious for years, "Americans have been living beyond their means, using illusory housing wealth and huge slugs of foreign capital to consume far more than we’ve produced. The crash surely signals the end to that." The second, more subtle lesson, he says, is how the rush to home ownership and the current foreclosure crisis has made the American worker "less nimble" and more likely to be held hostage in a home they can't sell in a region of the country with a non-diversified local economy and few job opportunities. Unfortunately many regions of Florida resemble that description, while the regional hubs of innovation like Austin, Boulder and the Research Triangle continue to grow and attract those workers who aren't tied down to an underwater home they bought in the last five years.