In the current The Atlantic Cities, abridged and revised information from Richard Florida’s latest book, “The Creative Class Revisited,” the City of Falls Church is right behind Arlington County, Virginia, sporting the third-highest concentration of members of Florida’s so-called “creative class” in the U.S.
In the rankings, F.C. is third with 58.9 percent of its population (of 12,300) being professionals in the fields of science and technology, design and architecture, arts, entertainment and media, health care, law, management and education. In Arlington, the “creative class” composes 60.8 percent of the total population, surpassed only by Los Alamos, New Mexico, home to the Los Alamos Labs, where 65.9 percent of the population is “creative.” The District of Columbia (with all those lawyers) comes in fourth at 53.7 percent, and Virginia’s City of Alexandria sixth at 53.4 percent, Fairfax County eighth at 51.8 percent, Loudoun County tenth at 50.9 percent and Fairfax City 12th at 48.2 percent. Two Maryland counties – Howard (9th) and Montgomery (11th) – bring the total among the top 12 counties to nine that are located in the D.C. area.
