Has anyone analyzed the connection between growth fueled by over-leveraging, and the rise and size of the Creative Class? To what degree did this recent over-leveraging create and support the salaries and bonuses of the "creative class" as so well documented by Richard Florida? This in reference to higher-income members of the "creative class" that can afford the lofts, the boutique hotels, the trendy restaurants and bars, and the arts centers that Dr. Florida documented in numerous booming real estate markets inhabited by the "Creative Class". This does not refer to creative individuals who are not sufficiently remunerated to support trendy restaurants or secure a mortgage for an upscale loft.

We need updated 2008 evaluations on how our recent excessive leveraging and asset valuations provided the markets and thus revenue sources for many of the firms, departments, business units, and cottage industries that employed many members of the "creative class" (or provided deep-pocketed clients) and thus made the Creative Class wealthy enough to support real estate booms.
It seems many urban planners and elected officials were attracted to the pitch of wooing the Creative Class not because they liked the idea of people finding their "inner-creative-self" and becoming self-actualized. Rather, planners and elected officials were sold on the economics of the Creative Class. Therefore, should we not begin quantitative analysis on what degree the Creative Class's 'beneficial economics' may turn out to be as transitory and unsustainable as the real estate booms they supported in the urban areas documented by Dr. Florida?
If locales continue to pursue the Creative Class in 2008 and beyond, will they still reap the expected economic benefits? Or will resources be mistakenly sent chasing something that was a “one-hit wonder”? Were the documented fiscal benefits of having a Creative Class really a late-stage manifestation of the "Irrational Exuberance" of the marketplace?

If the 2007-08 (and 09?) credit crunch and its de-leveraging produce a “new financial order” of fewer real estate bubbles and fewer developments viable only thru excessive leveraging, then will the future Creative Class be just as creative individually as in the past, yet just less relevant to the local economy because, in a post- deleveraged world, they earn less and are smaller in numbers? Maybe not in Silicon valley, Hollywood, Vancouver, and NYC…but what about in the many smaller secondary markets striving to sustain a local industry in technology, entertainment & media, the arts, and high finance? In this new Post-DeLeveraged World, can so many secondary markets expect to attract relevant numbers of high-paying members of the Creative Class and their employers or clients? Will the Creative Class still matter to urban planners and elected officials, or be primarily of interest only to studies and books on achieving personal career satisfaction and self-actualization?