Rise of the Creative Class – a new growth regime The provocative and influential bestseller, The Rise of the Creative Class (Florida 2002a), has ushered in a new era for urban and regional economic development. [...] The demise of a Fordist mode of production has also contributed to new interest (of researchers and policy-makers) in the “rise of a creative economy” and the general importance of cities to the creative process (Rantisi et al. [...] The two major changes in the employment structure of post-industrial society are the shift to services as a dominant sector of employment, and the public sector as a major and growing area of employment (Bell 1973:129). [...] The Service Class in Ontario’s Workforce In Canada, there is a general trend of the rise of the creative class, as well as an associated rise in the service class in terms of workforce composition. [...] As illustrated in Figure 1, the service class rose roughly in tandem with the creative class, and since the mid-1960s represents the largest segment of the workforce.