Which is more important to New York City's economy, the gleaming corporate office--or the grungy rock club that launches the best new bands? If you said office, think again. In The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid argues that creative industries like fashion, art, and music drive the economy of New York as much as--if not more than--finance, real estate, and law. And these creative industries are fueled by the social life that whirls around the clubs, galleries, music venues, and fashion shows where creative people meet, network, exchange ideas, pass judgments, and set the trends that shape popular culture.

The implications of Currid's argument are far-reaching, and not just for New York. Urban policymakers, she suggests, have not only seriously underestimated the importance of the cultural economy, but they have failed to recognize that it depends on a vibrant creative social scene. They haven't understood, in other words, the social, cultural, and economic mix that Currid calls the Warhol economy.

With vivid first-person reporting about New York's creative scene, Currid takes the reader into the city spaces where the social and economic lives of creativity merge. The book has fascinating original interviews with many of New York's important creative figures, including fashion designers Zac Posen and Diane von Furstenberg, artists Ryan McGinness and Futura, and members of the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

The economics of art and culture in New York and other cities has been greatly misunderstood and underrated. The Warhol Economy explains how the cultural economy works-and why it is vital to all great cities.

is a provocative study of New York City's economy and how the creative industries such as fashion, art and music drive its economy as much as finance, real estate, and law. What's fascinating about this book is that she has used first-hand documentation and over 100 illuminating interviews with leading fashion designers, musicians, club owners, and artists such as Ryan McGinness, Lee Quinones, and Futura, to get an insider's account of how creativity is at work in New York from a sociological point of view.

"New York depends on art and culture not only for the quality of life but also for jobs." The Economist

Currid offers social science with a downtown mentality, crunching numbers with one eye on her data set and the other on the dance floor....performs the very useful role of demonstrating how that which appears ephemeral and unimportant in the life of a city actually serves as part of what makes it function.... [The] book reforms and advances the debate on cities and the creative economy that continues to loom large in New York and across the country.

From a public policy perspective, art and culture are often thought of as mere frills--so-called 'quality of life' traits--that help attract the business talent that really drives a city's economy. But in , Currid argues that the cultural industries are actually a much larger economic force than is traditionally understood....The research in is specific to New York, but Currid argues that its larger lesson can and should be applied to any city that seeks a place in the new idea-driven economy.

Given the current hype about economic clusters, what a pleasure it is to read a book about a real cluster--one with all the competition and collaboration, the shared pool of skilled labor, and the intense face-to-face interaction that are essential to the true cluster. Others have discussed the New York City arts scene from the standpoint of economic geography, but none better than Currid. Her understanding of how the industry functions and her insightful analysis of its economics provides the basis for her discussion of what urban policy makers should do to foster growth of this essential element in the economy of the creative or knowledge city.

The old economy made deals over golf games and three-martini lunches. Creative New York organizes its networks around art openings, fashion shows, and nightlife. But these networks are a lot more than fun and games. They are deeply important to how new innovations are produced, how cities work to sustain creativity and turn it into commercial value. Cities drive our economies; creativity drives our cities. With her keen eye, sharp analysis, and detailed fieldwork, Elizabeth Currid shows us why and how. In , she has unlocked the best-kept secrets in New York.

An exploration of how fashion, art, and music drive New York City, argues that the city's cultural resources contribute more to the economy than most policy makers realize or admit. Interviews with well-known bands, designers, artists, club owners, and writers underscore the value of cultural producers; an appendix's worth of hard numbers back them up.

New York's creative industries are inextricably linked...[Currid] discusses not just the power of such social networks, but also the fusion of fashion and art.

A brilliant analysis of the social mechanisms by which creative individuals and the industries they populate drive New York's economy...Beyond Ms. Currid's reasoned analysis and careful exposition of fact, is simply a pleasure to read in a way that sociological studies never are. Engaging, gossipy without being trashy, and just plain fun, is social science with a downtown mentality, it points to significant realities in the generation of cultural capital that are, important, and ready for broadcast.

What Currid shows is that culture matters as much as high finance to the city's economy--150,00 new jobs in 2001, she says--but nobody's paying attention to how it really works: not the grants for plodding public art, not the checques for art world institutions, but the life. If you want to be world capital of culture, it may be more important to have low rents for big spaces and somewhere to dance....The importance of her work is that she's saying the obvious to policy wonks and city planners, hanging her arguments on an impressive framework of proper statistics.

The numerous formal and informal--and even messy--interactions that connect the people and companies within a cluster come alive under Currid's direction. Currid offers a detailed, thorough account of how a cluster works at the micro level where people cross over related industries (graffiti artist and fashion designer, for example), cross-pollinate ideas, and work through word of mouth.

This book is about how one urban conurbation, New York City, works and how creativity occurs within it. It sets out to provide an understanding of how creativity in fashion, art and music originates, why it happens and where it takes place. The book is a good read, generously illustrated with stories of the NYC creative milieu past and present, extensively noted and referenced.

In detailing the inner workings of New York's creative industries...urban planning Ph.D. Currid gives readers an eagle-eyed look at the networking mechanics of the art-as-business crowd. Colorful description abounds, as do colorful characters.

Elizabeth Currid's hip trip through New York's production of creative culture is a tour de force.

Not every Ph.D student blows her fellowship money at Barneys New York. But for the urban planner Elizabeth Currid, her passion for style led to some interesting statistics, which she examines in .

Elizabeth Currid is assistant professor at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning, and Development. She holds a Ph.D. in urban planning from Columbia University. She divides her time between New York and Los Angeles.

PREFACE ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii

CHAPTER 1: Art, Culture, and New York City 1

CHAPTER 2: How It All Began From the Rise of the Factory to the Rise of Bling 17

CHAPTER 3: Becoming Creative 45

CHAPTER 4: The Social Life of Creativity 66

CHAPTER 5: The Economics of a Dance Floor 87

CHAPTER 6: Creating Buzz, Selling Cool 114

CHAPTER 7: The Rise of Global Tastemakers

What It All Means for the Policymakers 154

EPILOGUE 187

APPENDIX 191

NOTES 211

REFERENCES 233

INDEX 243