Richard Florida is walking through the Modern, Danny Meyer's new restaurant at the MoMA, wondering why its patrons have transformed from business-y and middle-aged to a casual crowd in its 30s in the few hours we've been there. That'sthe kind of thing he gets paid to think about as an author, professor and nowsomething of a brand ambassador for the Le Meridien Hotels. Tall and genial,Florida was recently named a member of the LM100, a collective of artists, writers and creative-types, thathas been assembled by Le Meridien Hotels and its cultural curator Jerome Sans,to help burnish the image of the brand that was bought by hotel group Starwood in 2005. Asstated in the beautifully produced materials distributed at the luncheon forabout 20 at the Modern, the goal is to "transform Le Meridien Hotels into creative hubs and deliver newperspectives to the creative guests."

Florida is well-chosen for this group. As the author TheRise of the Creative Class, a data-driven study of the migration habits of young people, he has charted thearrival of a powerful new urban demographic that would be most likely to enjoythe library he's helping to curate for Le Meridien hotels as well as the otherartistic-driven amenities they are rolling out. He's also signed a deal with TheAtlantic to write for the magazine as well as a website they're launching inSeptember. We grabbed the opportunity to talk with him.

David Hershkovits: Do you see a lot of change in New York?

Richard Florida: I once asked Jane Jacobs [the urbanistwriter and activist] what she thought about gentrification, especially downtownand Soho. Jane said, 'You know when a place gets boring even the rich peopleleave.'

DH: Are you worried about New York then?

RF: No, there's Queens and Brooklyn. I think New York is fine andwrote an article in The Atlantic that suggested that when the financial criseshit, the place that will come out the strongest is New York. I think my speculation has proven to be more accurate than people would believe. There are great returns now for very big, very open, very open-mindedcities and New York, and maybe London as well, have distinguished themselves as thecapitals of capitals. They're not just finance and banking capitals but media and culture empires, too. Ido worry about affordability but I'm not too concerned about New York right now.

DH: Where is your current research taking you?

RF: I want to take a little time off writing books. I'm launching a new site called AtlanticCities which is going to be a way for peopleto talk about cities, and for myself to take a more editorial position andcurate in my own space. And this summer I'm writing the 10th anniversaryedition of The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited. I take on the debates thebook has inspired among its acolytes and critics, try to report on trends thathave emerged over the decade, the massive crises in capitalism and talk aboutwhere my ideas have changed.

And I want to write a book on music - how music has shapedour cities and shaped our cultures. My hunch is that if we look at start-upculture and we look at Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, a lot of their influencecame form watching bands and bands are quintessential start-up companies. Howmusical scenes and clusters develop and why and what they say about theopenness of a place to new ideas. My wife is from Detroit and we talk about howDetroit leadership never really embraced music -- we know Motown, we know rock, the MC5, electronic music, but city leaders mostly ignored that in favor of carproduction. The pride of a city and the soul of a city often comesfrom its music -- there's something to that that I'd like to explore more.

I've also been looking at the effect of cities on ourhealth. Living in a denser city is not only ecologically better, but people areactually thinner, there's less obesity and there's less smoking. Additionally, I'm writing a piece now on whycrime is down in cities. One reason is that they are more diverse. Demographicdiversity has made it safer.