Since the 1970s, cities are changing from centers of production to centers of consumption. The question is how to manage and respond to this new view and function of cities. All over the world we now see how industrial areas, former harbors, old-fashioned office buildings, and other premises strongly connected with the industrial and productive function of cities and urban regions are being reconstituted as apartments, lofts, condominiums, and houses. This is thought to be the domain of the "creative class."

But is this true? Does the creative class exist and if so, who belongs to it? Can we actually speak of a "class," suggesting it is a rather homogeneous group? Does the growth of the creative class occur at the expense of groups that are less able to meet the demands of the knowledge society?

Lon Deben is a sociologist in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). Marco Bontje is a geographer at the research institute AMIDST in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands).