Charlotta Mellander

Handbook of Creative Cities

Contents: PART I: FOUNDATIONS 1. Analysing Creative Cities David Emanuel Andersson and Charlotta Mellander 2. Creative People Need Creative Cities A...ke E. Andersson 3. The Creative Class Paradigm Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander and Patrick Adler 4. Big-C Creativity in the Big City Dean Keith Simonton 5. Clusters, Networks and Creativity Charlie Karlsson PART II: PEOPLE 6. The Open City Peter Jason Rentfrow 7. The Value of Creativity Todd M. Gabe 8. Understanding Canadas Evolving Design Economy Tara Vinodrai 9. The Three Ts and Inter-regional Migration Karen M. King 10. Higher Education and the Creative City Alessandra Faggian and Roberta Comunian PART III: NETWORKS 11. Research Nodes and Networks Christian Wichmann-Matthiessen, Annette Winkel Schwarz and SA ren Find 12. Scenes, Innovation and Urban Development Terry Nichols Clark, Dan Silver and Chris Graziul 13. The Arts: Not Just Artists (and Vice Versa) Elizabeth Currid-Halkett and Kevin M. Stolarick 14. The Creative Potential of Network Cities David F. Batten 15. Why Being There Matters: Finnish Professionals in Silicon Valley Carol Marie Kiriakos PART IV: PLANNING 16. Creative Cities Need Less Government David Emanuel Andersson 17. Land Use Regulation for the Creative City Stefano Moroni 18. The Emergence of Vancouver as a Creative City Gus diZerega and David F. Hardwick PART V: MARKETS 19. Cultivating Creativity: Market Creation of Agglomeration Economies Randall G. Holcombe 20. The Sociability and Morality of Market Settlements Virgil Henry Storr and Arielle John 21. Creative Environments: The Case for Local Economic Diversity Pierre Desrochers and Samuli Leppala 21. Does Density Matter? Peter Gordon and Sanford Ikeda 23. Creative Milieus in Stockholm Borje Johansson and Johan Klaesson 24. The Creative City and its Distributional Consequences: The Case of Wellington Philip S. Morrison PART VI: VISIONS 25. Contract, Voice and Rent: Voluntary Urban Planning Fred E. Foldvary 26. A Roadmap for the Creative City Charles Landry Index

Night-Time Light Data: A Good Proxy Measure for Economic Activity?

Much research has suggested that night-time light (NTL) can be used as a proxy for a number of variables, including urbanization, density, and economic growth. As governments around the world either collect census data infrequently or are scaling back the amount of detail collected, alternate sources of population and economic information like NTL are being considered. But, just how close is the statistical relationship between NTL and economic activity at a fine-grained geographical level? This paper uses a combination of correlation analysis and geographically weighted regressions in order to examine if light can function as a proxy for economic activities at a finer level. We use a fine-grained geo-coded residential and industrial full sample micro-data set for Sweden, and match it with both radiance and saturated light emissions. We find that the correlation between NTL and economic activity is strong enough to make it a relatively good proxy for population and establishment density, but the correlation is weaker in relation to wages. In general, we find a stronger relation between light and density values, than with light and total values. We also find a closer connection between radiance light and economic activity, than with saturated light. Further, we find the link between light and economic activity, especially estimated by wages, to be slightly overestimated in large urban areas and underestimated in rural areas.

The city as innovation machine

ABSTRACT The city as innovation machine. Regional Studies. This paper puts cities and urban regions at the very centre of the processes of innovation and entrepreneurship. It combines the insights of Jane Jacobs and recent urban research on the role of the city with the literature on innovation and entrepreneurship going back to Joseph Schumpeter. Innovation and entrepreneurship and their geography privileges the firm, industry clusters and/or the individual and poses the city as a container for them. By marrying Jacobs’ insights on cities to those of Schumpeter on innovation, it is argued that innovation and entrepreneurship do not simply take in place in cities but in fact require them.

Music scenes to music clusters: the economic geography of music in the US, 1970 – 2000

Where do musicians locate, and why do creative industries such as music continue to cluster? This paper analyzes the economic geography of musicians and the recording industry in the US from 1970 to 2000, to shed light on the locational dynamics of music and creative industries more broadly. We examine the role of scale and scope economies in shaping the clustering and concentration of musicians and music industry firms. We argue that these two forces are bringing about a transformation in the geography of both musicians and music industry firms, evidenced in a shift away from regionally clustered, genre-specific music scenes, such as Memphis or Detroit, toward larger regional centers such as New York City and Los Angeles, which offer large markets for music employment and concentrations of other artistic and cultural endeavors that increase demand for musicians. We use population and income to probe for scale effects and look at concentrations of other creative and artistic industries to test for scope effects, while including a range of control variables in our analysis. We use lagged variables to determine whether certain places are consistently more successful at fostering concentrations of musicians and the music industry and to test for path dependency. We find some role for scale and scope effects and that both musicians and the music industry are concentrating in a relatively small number of large regional centers.

The Geography of Inequality: Difference and Determinants of Wage and Income Inequality across US Metros

Florida R. and Mellander C. The geography of inequality: difference and determinants of wage and income inequality across US metros, Regional Studies. This paper examines the geographic variation in wage inequality and income inequality across US metros. The findings indicate that the two are quite different. Wage inequality is closely associated with skills, human capital, technology and metro size, in line with the literature, but these factors are only weakly associated with income inequality. Furthermore, wage inequality explains only 15% of income inequality across metros. Income inequality is more closely associated with unionization, race and poverty. No relationship is found between income inequality and average incomes and only a modest relationship between it and the percentage of high-income households.

Creative and Knowledge Industries: An Occupational Distribution Approach

This article deals with the discussion around so-called creative industries. Up until now, most definitions have been based on the final product rather than the actual processes within the firms.This work is an attempt to increase the knowledge about what is going on within industries. We use a micro data set, including all private firms and all individuals employed by those firms, to identify the exact occupational distribution within Swedish industries. Furthermore, a debate has questioned whether creative individuals are separated from the highly educated. In this work, therefore, education level is separated from occupational task.

China’s development disconnect

China is currently seeking to transform its economic structure from a traditional industrial to a more innovative, human-capital driven, and knowledge-based economy. Our research examines the effects of three key factors on Chinese regional development in an attempt to gauge to what degree China has transformed from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy, based on higher levels of (1) technology and innovation, (2) human capital and knowledge/professional/creative occupations, and (3) factors like tolerance, universities, and amenities which act on the flow of the first two. We employ structural equation models to gauge the effects of these factors on the economic performance of Chinese regions. Our research generates four key findings. First, the distribution of talent (measured both as human capital and as knowledge–professional and creative occupations) is considerably more concentrated than in the US or other advanced economies. Second, universities are the key factor in shaping the distribution both of talent and of technological innovation. Third, tolerance also plays a role in shaping the distribution of talent and technology across Chinese regions. Fourth, and perhaps most strikingly, we find that neither talent nor technology is associated with the economic performance of Chinese regions. This stands in sharp contrast to the pattern in advanced economies and suggests that the Chinese economic model, at least at the time of data collection, appears to be far less driven by the human capital or technology factors that propel more advanced economies. This, in turn, suggests that China is likely to face substantial obstacles in moving from its current industrial stage of development to a more knowledge-based economy.

The Rise of Skills: Human Capital, the Creative Class and Regional Development

The past couple of decades have seen what amounts to skills revolution in urban and regional economic research. From industrial location theory and Alfred Marshall’s concern for agglomeration to more recent research on high-tech districts and industrial clusters firms and industries has been the dominant unit of analysis. But since the 1990s there has been a growing focus on skills. This broad research thrust includes studies of human capital; the creative class and occupational class more broadly; and physical, cognitive and social skills, among others. This research highlights the growing geographic divergence of skills across cities and metros and their effects on regional innovation, wages, incomes and development broadly. A growing literature notes the growing importance of place in organizing and mobilizing these skills. Studies have focused on the role of amenities, universities, diversity and other place-related factor in accounting for the growing divergence of skills across locations. This article summarizes the key lines of research that constitute the skills revolution in urban and regional research.

Global Metropolis: Assessing Economic Activity in Urban Centers Based on Nighttime Satellite Images

This research provides new data and insight on metropolitan areas worldwide. It summarizes new data, derived from satellite images of the world at night, to provide systematic estimates of the economic activity generated by cities and metropolitan areas worldwide. It identifies 681 global metropolitan areas each with more than 500,000 people. Taken as a whole, these large global metropolitan regions house 24 percent of the worlds population but produce 60 percent of global output, measured as light emissions. Asia leads the way in global economic urbanization according to our findings, followed by North America, the emerging economies, and Europe.

Rise of the startup city : The changing geography of the venture capital financed innovation

The prevailing geographic model for high-technology industrial organization has been the “nerdistan,” a sprawling, car-oriented suburb organized around office parks. This seems to contradict a basic insight of urban theory, which associates dense urban centers with higher levels of innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. This article examines the geography of recent venture capital finance startups across U.S. metros and within a subset of them by neighborhood. It concludes that the model is changing. The suburban model might have been a historical aberration, and innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship are realigning in the same urban centers that traditionally fostered them.