Can Startups Share Their Big City Success?

The unaffordable urban paradise. Richard Florida says that startups are now tearing cities apart.

Everybody wants a little, or maybe a lot, of high tech economic action in their backyard, right? The money, the jobs, the flash, the cappuccinos. Tech startups have turned a bunch of cities into megastars. But watch out, says my guest today, urban development guru Richard Florida. Those tech startups can also tear cities apart. Drive housing prices out of sight. Drive out the middle class. Shred the fabric. This hour On Point: Richard Florida on the unaffordable urban paradise. -- Tom Ashbrook

Richard Florida, author of, "The New Urban Crisis." American urban studies theorist, and professor of cities at the University of Toronto. (@Richard_Florida)

Justin Steil, professor of law and urban planning at MIT.

Dev Davis, San Jose councilmember, representing District 6, the location for Google's planned development. (@DevDavisCA)

Washington Post: Why Travis Kalanick didn’t survive at Uber — "The plot to oust Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick began almost the moment he announced last week that he was taking a temporary break from the celebrated technology company caught in a series of a scandals."

CityLab: Can Startups Save Struggling Metros? — "While the spread of startup hubs would do much to bolster lagging regions and to take the pressure off the nation’s leading startup hubs, they run an uphill battle against some very strong and deeply ingrained economic forces. The clustering effects of talent and skill are what drive high-tech innovation and startups. Economists have documented this 'great divergence,' and the same phenomenon is happening with the preponderance of high-skill, high-tech jobs clustered in a small set of U.S. cities and metro areas. "