The Warhol Economy – How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City – New Edition - Softcover

"Elizabeth Currid's hip trip through New York's production of creative culture is a tour de force."--Quincy Jones, producer

"I've uttered the words 'It just kind of happened' with a shrug hundreds of times when asked about the quick success of my band. Elizabeth Currid blows that lazy response to smithereens by showing the work behind 'word of mouth.' I think I'll have a better answer now."--Lee Sargent, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

"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 The Warhol Economy, she has unlocked the best-kept secrets in New York."--Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class

"Elizabeth Currid's The Warhol Economy raises distinctive policy implications: namely, cities will get bigger payoffs by supporting milieu rather than museum. Laws that hurt the clubs are almost as bad as the rising rents that price-out the artists. Tax breaks to corporations make no sense whatever. Currid is more than plausible on all these issues."--Harvey Molotch, New York University

"Elizabeth Currid has written a wonderful book. She shows that the arts and culture are not simply 'service industries.' Examining arts and culture in New York for the understanding they provide about deeper changes in our world, Currid addresses fundamental sociological issues while also engaging the general reader--with clarity, insight, humor, and passion. The reader feels taken along to the offices and nightclubs where some of the most creative people in New York gather."--Terry Clark, University of Chicago

"[Currid] describes the organic, informal, social networking side of the creative arts in a mixed tone of Rolling Stone new journalism and objective reporting that serves to advance her central thesis: that as an independent drive of an urban economy, the arts and its related industries should stop being viewed as the beautiful step-child of city environments."---Susan Gardner, Daily Kos

"Not every PhD 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."---Anya Kamenetz, New York Times

"Any discussion about New York City's economic well-being tends to start and end with one phrase: Wall Street. As the Street goes, we assume, so goes the city, which is why politicians will do almost anything to keep the brokerages and investment banks happy.... [In] The Warhol Economy the social scientist Elizabeth Currid argues that this fixation is misdirected, and that it has led us to neglect the city's most vital and distinctive economic sector: the culture industry, which, in Currid's definition, includes everything from fashion, art, and music to night clubs. In other words, it's SoHo and Chelsea, not Wall Street, that the politicians should really be thinking about. Of course, everyone knows that art and culture help make New York a great place to live. But Currid goes much further, showing that the culture industry creates tremendous economic value in its own right."---James Surowiecki, The New Yorker

"Elizabeth Currid's argument in this intelligent and innovative book is that New York, and certain other great cities in particular periods, function as the Factory on a greater scale, and that social policy out to reflect that fact."---Roz Kaveney, Times Literary Supplement

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

Elizabeth Currid is an 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 and divides her time between New York and Los Angeles.