Experts such as British author John Hawkins, who popularized the term "creative economy," and urban studies theorist Richard Florida, who coined the term "creative class", have demonstrated the power of creative people and sectors to strengthen communities and unleash growth. The Creative Class now comprises more than 30 percent of the entire workforce equating to an estimated 38 million people. Their choices have already had a huge economic impact. In the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither. Richard Florida wrote "The Rise of the Creative Class" in 2002 and since that time, many counties in the United States of America have used millions to develop environments that attract an existing creative class. (see figure 1.2) Each of these counties have spent millions to provide the social amenities to attract and retain an "existing and limited-count" creative class.

Creative class counties ranked in the top quarter in employment in creative class occupations; metro/nonmetro status is based on the 2003 definition. Source: USDA Economic Research Service data product, Creative Class County Codes, using data from the pooled 2007-11 American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau. There are a total of 3142 counties.

As suggested by the figure above, many counties (approximately three fourths) are missing a creative class. Furthermore, there are pockets of non-creative classes within the counties cited to have creative classes. In the case for these pockets and counties without a defined creative class, people may be considered to be disadvantaged in terms of scaling typical expectations for innovation and creativity. For these disadvantaged, we need broader paradigms for transference into the creative class, or perhaps a second and third tier of thinking. This disadvantaged makeup the largest land area and the most people. Through more creative paradigms and tiers of thinking, the “disadvantaged” and their supporters must find and use a scaling science that plots a path to innovative solutions amidst our uncertainties. This path unbeknownst to the typical creative class must account for a broader range of contexts in which innovators, impact investors, funders, NGOs, social enterprises, and governments are currently acting. In our studies, RT seeks such a set of paradigms and tiers of thinking.