Mapping Jamaica Plain’s ‘Creative Class’

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Map of "class share" of the creative, service and working classes in Boston.

Martin Prosperity Institute

Map of "class share" of the creative, service and working classes in Boston.

Map of "class share" of the creative, service and working classes in Boston.

Martin Prosperity Institute

Map of "class share" of the creative, service and working classes in Boston.

A new study confirms what you already know: Jamaica Plain is full of creative types. Demographer Richard Florida argues this "creative class" represents a new kind of class divide.

Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and one of the study’s authors, says that class is an inescapable presence in America. And he makes a point that class is embedded in our geography; there’s a clear relationship.

The Divided City: And the Shape of the New Metropolis” intends to help people better understand the relationship between class and geography since it’s an inevitable factor in our way of life, according to the study.

Florida and his team refer to three major workforce classes in the study: the creative class made up of educated, creative and innovative people; the service class composed of lower-wage occupations (retails, clerical work, food preparation); and the blue-collar working class.

The study tracks Florida’s three classes in 12 of America’s largest metropolises, including Boston.

According to Map 10-B in the study, JP falls in the 50-75 percentile of composing a primarily creative class population and is compared to areas like Brookline and Cambridge in terms of their creative class population percentile. The study says JP has attracted a "substantial" creative class population.

For more, here's the Washington Post's analysis of the study.

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