GaWC Research Bulletin 306

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Not So Mobile 'Creative Class': A European Perspective

H. Martin-Brelot*, M. Grossetti**, D. Eckert***, O.Gritsai**** and Z. Kovács*****

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to test the hypothesis of R. Florida regarding the spatial mobility of the ‘creative class' and the role of soft factors in their decision about place of residence. Empirical data from 11 European cities suggest that the European ‘creative class' is not as mobile as suggested by him. Cultural and institutional constraints contribute to lower mobility rates. In the paper the role of ‘personal trajectories' completely disregarded until now is highlighted. For Europe Florida and others have overestimated the role of soft factors. They play only a marginal role in attracting the members of the creative class to a city. On the other hand, they indeed play an important role in retaining these people, which also provides some support for policies aiming at the type of conditions for creative cities.

Keywords: creative industries, creative class, mobility of talent, urban competitiveness, soft location factors


INTRODUCTION

Recent studies have stressed the importance of creativity for the economic development and competitiveness of cities. Cities that concentrate firms and labour engaged in creative industries are economically more successful than others (Hall 2000, 2004; Landry 2000; Musterd 2004; Turok 2004). Therefore, if cities want to increase their competitiveness they should attract firms and employees of the creative economy. This preconception also implies that cities who do not follow this policy will be the laggards of the future economy.

Central in this discussion is Richard Florida's “creative class” concept (Florida 2002). According to Florida, cities can win the battle of competitiveness by increasing their capacity attract a certain population group labelled as “creative”. These people are supposed to create economic activities and wealth in a period when ideas and new contents are of major importance: “The creative class is comprised of a ‘super creative core', which consists of a new class of scientists and engineers, university professors, poets, actors, novelists, entertainers, artists, architects and designers, cultural worthies, think-tank researchers, analysts and opinion formers, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and/or new creative content” (Florida 2002, p. 8). Members of this “creative class” are supposed to be very mobile and to seek living conditions in accordance with their ideals like a tolerant urban society, openness to minorities, a quality urban environment, diversity of cultural life etc.

In his recent paper Florida also stresses that “to create a growth region, you need the kind of place that people want to come to and can easily get to, where they can lead the lives they want and express themselves freely” (Florida 2006, p. 26). This statement highlights the importance of ‘soft' location factors. In the past companies and investors strongly relied upon ‘hard' factors. They include the availability of certain resources like labour force, office space, or the level of wages, accessibility etc. While these ‘hard' and more classic location factors are still very important, the role of ‘soft' location factors gain in popularity to explain the location patterns of businesses, especially branches of the ‘creative industries'. ‘Soft' factors include the quality of the environment, the functioning of housing market, or a lively cultural scene (Musterd et al 2007). While most of the authors writing on the creative sector focus on the location pattern of creative companies (Garnham 2005; Montgomery 2005; Scott 1997), Florida (2006) tries to explain why creative and talented people settle in a certain city or region. The attractiveness of cities is crucial because economic success will increase with the inflow of talent; therefore what cities should attract is not the creative companies, but the people that work for these companies.

Florida's thesis can be broken down into six statements and hypotheses:

  1. There is a set of professions that deal with “creative” tasks;
  2. Their members are sufficiently similar to be considered as a class, sharing characteristics regarding their activities and their way of life;
  3. This so-called “creative class” is a major driver of today's economic development;
  4. Members of the “creative class” tend to concentrate in certain cities. Such cities therefore show a better economic performance;
  5. Members of the “creative class” are geographically mobile;
  6. Members of the “creative class” are mainly attracted by “soft” factors, thus cities should rather focus on these if they want to attract creative people.

Florida's assumptions have been broadly accepted by city planners and politicians of all ranks. The idea of making a city attractive for the creative class became very popular and is sometimes seen as a panacea for any city to make a quick breakthrough in economic progress. At the same time, Florida's thesis gave rise to an intense academic debate ranging from scepticism (Peck, 2005; Musterd & Ostendorf 2004; Hall 2004; Montgomery 2005; Bourdin 2005; Glaeser 2004; Sawicky 2003; Shearmur 2007a, 2007b) to new studies taking for granted the existence of the “creative class” and its role in economic development (CCPR, 2003). Critics of Florida's concept cover a wide spectrum, some addressing the weakness of his empirical data (Levine 2004), others the hypotheses of his formula. Bourdin (2005) tackled the idea of “creative class” (hypothesis 2) whereas Shearmur (2007b) criticized the causal link between creative class and economic growth (hypothesis 3). In the same vein, Scott criticized the idea of attracting professionals without already having jobs for them: “Any city that lacks a system of employment able to provide these individuals with appropriate and durable means of living is scarcely in a position to induce significant numbers of them to take up permanent residence there, no matter what other encouragements policy makers may offer” (Scott, 2005, p. 23). The same kind of argument was put forward by Storper and Manville (2006) (i.e. “correlation is not causation”, p. 13).

In 2004, Florida answered some of the critics (Florida, 2004). For the question of causal link between economic growth and the share of creative professionals, his answer was that people choose places first and find jobs afterwards. He relied on an opinion poll among 4000 graduates from colleges that was published in 2002 in the Wall Street Journal. Three quarters of the respondents expressed the opinion that place is more important than job availability in their choice of a region where to live. It is difficult to take these opinions as predictive of the actual mobility behaviours of creative professionals and to decide between the two possible interpretations of the causal linkages without a study on the actual reasons why creative professionals decide to move to one city or another. It is indeed remarkable, that although almost all of these critics point to the weakness of the empirical basis of Florida's concept, few of them display new empirical evidence that could go beyond the mere spatial correlations that Florida uses. This is precisely the intention of the present study using the data on 11 selected European cities.

The concept of Richard Florida has special relevance for Europe as Florida himself, with co-author Irene Tinagli made a study of the European creative class (Florida & Tinagli, 2004). The authors suggest that Europe has a large creative class (“So how extensive is the Creative Class across the European nations? The short answer is very extensive”, p. 13). However, the focus of their study remain at the level of countries and they admit that they “desperately need more and better measures that reach below the national level and cover cities and regions” (p. 41). Two European researchers recently took up the challenge and transposed Florida's methodology to a sample of Europeans regions (Boschma & Fritsch 2007). They performed statistical analysis of indicators referring to economic growth, importance of creative class (especially the “bohemian” part), and “indexes of openness”, “public provision” and “cultural opportunity”. Statistical correlations were found between all these indicators and the authors conclude that “The results of our analysis based on a unique data set of more than 450 regions in eight European countries tend to confirm most of the hypotheses suggested by Florida in regard to the creative class and its effects on regional development” (p. 28). Favell (2008) in his thorough analysis of the cross-border mobility of highly-skilled European migrants does not directly refer to Florida's ideas but he presents a lot of convincing empirical data to discuss them. These analyses draw the attention of academics to the issue of mobility and the spatial concentration of creative people and businesses. However, most of them are based on official (census) statistics at national and regional level, and generally lack empirical evidences.

This paper presents some of the empirical results of a European research project called ‘Accommodating Creative Knowledge – Competitiveness of European Metropolitan Region within the Enlarged Union' (ACRE) that has been carried out within the 6th Framework Programme1. The ACRE-project includes several research steps, some of them based on quantitative data, others more on qualitative methods. This paper is based on quantitative data deriving from a questionnaire survey that was carried out in 11 participating cities2 in 2007, and resulting in more than 2300 questionnaires filled out by professionals considered as “creative”3. These empirical data provide a solid basis to test hypothesis 5 and 6 in the concept of Florida (high mobility of the creative class and the important role of ‘soft' factors in attracting creative people). The paper uses Florida's definition of “creative professions”, thus it does not test hypothesis 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Tracing life conditions of creative people: research design

The research design results from a collaborative work of all participating teams of the ACRE project. Methodology issues focused on two major tasks, namely the elaboration of a questionnaire and the definition of selection criteria to establish a common sampling process. Each team had the target to obtain at least 200 survey responses broken down as follows: at least 50 responses were required from higher educated people having graduated from a creative or knowledge discipline (based on ISCED-97 codes) in the city between 1997 and 2002; in addition 75 respondents were selected among workers both in the knowledge intensive and creative industries. In order to obtain comparable sets of data in all the case study cities, NACE classification was used to identify companies in six sub-sectors. Table 1 presents the distribution of the sample according to target populations.

Table 1: Distribution of the sample of creative knowledge workers and graduates by sectors (11 cities)

 

Sectors (NAF/NACE classification)

Number

Per cent

Knowledge intensive industries

Graduates from Engineering, Manuf. & construction + Social Sciences, Business & Law

301

12.8

Finances (65)

302

12.8

Law and other business services (741)

350

14.9

Higher education (803) + Research and Development (73)

267

11.3

Creative industries

Graduates from Humanities & Arts

315

13.4

Computer games, software, electronic publishing (722)

316

13.4

Advertising (744) or Architecture

277

11.8

Video Film Music and Photography (921) + Radio and TV (922)

227

9.6

 

Total

2355

100.0

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

Once companies were identified according to the selection criteria, the location inside the city region had to be considered. The sample had to include people working in the core city, as well as in the fringe or the periphery of each metropolitan area. The size of the company was also taken into account and self-employed, as well as workers in small (1 to 5 employees), medium (6 to 49) and large firms (50 employees and more) were targeted according to the relative weight of different size categories within the local creative economy.

The level of education of respondents was generally high, workers of knowledge intensive industries tended to reach PhD level more often than creative workers. The ISCO classification was applied to characterize the level of occupation of the surveyed people. As far as it was possible, employees occupying higher or strategic functions in the company (managers, professionals, associate professionals) had to be selected to fill in the questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to measure the satisfaction of creative people with the city, their working and living conditions, including housing aspects. In addition, personal characteristics of respondents such as gender, age, family status, place of birth and studies, were recorded.

Table 2 provides some of the main characteristics of the samples in each city. Male workers are over-represented everywhere, except in Dublin and Leipzig. Monthly incomes of the interviewed creative workers reflect a middle-class profile, but great variations can be observed among the cities (for example between Milan and Toulouse). Experienced workers aged over 35 are more present in the cities of Dublin, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Poznan. On the other hand, the samples in Milan and Toulouse are generally younger compared to other cities.

Table 2: Socio-economic characteristics of respondents

 

Frequency

Gender
% males

Income
monthly income (€) after tax (%)

Age

 

 

 

less than 2000

2000 to 5999

6000 and more

below 35

above 35

Amsterdam

235

58.5%

36.9%

54.2%

8.9%

41.7%

58.3%

Barcelona

204

59.3%

19.9%

71.4%

8.7%

34.5%

65.5%

Budapest

200

55.6%

83.5%

14.0%

2.4%

59.8%

40.2%

Dublin

234

48.0%

8.2%

74.7%

17.0%

15.9%

84.1%

Helsinki

227

50.8%

83.1%

15.0%

1.9%

68.4%

31.6%

Leipzig

200

46.7%

14.4%

56.3%

29.3%

59.4%

40.6%

Milan

200

55.0%

98.2%

1.8%

0.0%

72.4%

27.6%

Munich

202

62.4%

80.5%

14.9%

4.5%

64.4%

35.6%

Poznan

200

53.8%

20.0%

65.0%

15.0%

44.4%

55.6%

Riga

251

60.4%

58.3%

36.3%

5.4%

54.1%

45.9%

Toulouse

202

51.5%

11.1%

86.0%

2.9%

71.7%

28.3%

Total

2355

54.6%

44.4%

46.7%

9.0%

52.7%

47.3%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

A less mobile creative class

Migration of highly skilled, talented people plays an important role in the global economy. Mobility of creative professionals is a key hypothesis in the theory of Richard Florida: “Both technology and the talented and creative people that create it are highly mobile economic resources” (Florida & Tinagli 2004, p. 12). Are workers of creative and knowledge intensive industries in Europe really as mobile as suggested by Florida? Do personal attachments deriving from earlier stages in a person's life course (place of birth or study, and the personal ties that go with them) play any role in the decisions concerning workplace and place of residence among creative people in Europe?

Nearly half of the interviewed people (45.7 %) originate from the city where they currently live. This ratio reaches 53.3 percent if the metropolitan region is taken into account (table 3)4. Foreign people are generally rare (11.6 %) in the sample, with peak values in Dublin (50%), Riga (23.9%) and Amsterdam (16.9%). The appearance of Riga among the well-known “creative hubs” of Dublin and Amsterdam reflects the tremendous changes that have taken place in the Baltic States since the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991. The attractive historical image of Riga as a former hanseatic city with a long tradition as a multicultural society also played an important role there. These cities together with Toulouse showed the highest proportions of foreigners. The least mobile creative class resides in Barcelona, Milan and Poznan where more than 70 percent of the creative people were born in the city-region. They are followed by Budapest with ratios above 60 percent. This reflects a generally less cosmopolitan and more autochthonous creative class in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Table 3: Place of birth of respondents

 

Birth_2

Total

city or metropolitan region

country

foreign country

 

City

Amsterdam

37.2%

45.9%

16.9%

100,0%

Barcelona

76.8%

11.3%

12.0%

100,0%

Budapest

62.4%

31.5%

6.0%

100,0%

Dublin

31.0%

19.0%

50.0%

100,0%

Helsinki

42.4%

56.3%

1.3%

100,0%

Leipzig

51.9%

45.4%

2.8%

100,0%

Milan

74.8%

22.2%

3.0%

100,0%

Munich

50.0%

37.9%

12.1%

100,0%

Poznan

72.1%

26.4%

1.4%

100,0%

Riga

45.0%

31.2%

23.9%

100,0%

Toulouse

36.0%

52.5%

11.5%

100,0%

Total

53.3%

35.1%

11.6%

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

The inclination to a sedentary way of life is also reflected by the role of the city as a place of studies (table 4). The proportion of those who studied already in the city where they now reside is overwhelming in our sample: almost two-third of the interviewed people studied in the investigated city or its region. With 32.1 percent graduating locally Munich is the city where the creative class is the least domestic. On the other hand, with 89.7 percent of local creative people having studied in the city Poznan represents the other extreme. With regard to higher education it is also important to check, to what extent creative people have an international background. The ratio of those who graduated abroad is also relatively low in our sample with 9.7 percent, showing extreme variations among the cities. Riga and Dublin are the cities where a foreign diploma is most widespread among creative people, and Poznan is the other extreme where none of the 200 interviewed people acquired his/her degree abroad.

Table 4: Place where the highest level of education has been obtained

 

Place of higher education for all regions

Total

City

Metropolitan region

Country

Foreign country

 

City

Amsterdam

49.4%

1.9%

40.9%

7.8%

100,0%

Barcelona

83.0%

2.8%

5.0%

9.2%

100,0%

Budapest

63.6%

6.4%

25.7%

4.3%

100,0%

Dublin

57.0%

1.7%

16.3%

25.0%

100,0%

Helsinki

63.0%

4.1%

29.5%

3.4%

100,0%

Leipzig

36.0%

16.2%

44.1%

3.6%

100,0%

Milan

70.5%

2.9%

21.9%

4.8%

100,0%

Munich

32.1%

20.1%

41.0%

6.7%

100,0%

Poznan

89.7%

1.6%

8.7%

0.0%

100,0%

Riga

53.5%

.9%

7.9%

37.7%

100,0%

Toulouse

46.9%

0.0%

50.3%

2.7%

100,0%

Total

58.5%

5.1%

26.7%

9.7%

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

As our data show the majority of respondents had been living and studying in the city before they started their professional carrier. This means they did not have to choose between different cities on the basis of comparative advantages or disadvantages, they did not need to evaluate hard or soft conditions. Most people only decided to stay in the city where they were born, spent their childhood and/or studied. This result leads us to introduce a spatially relevant factor that may account for the residential preferences of creative people, the so-called personal trajectory. This is the attachment of a person to a geographical location resulting from his/her previous life course.

If we combine data referring to the place of birth and studies in one unique variable, we can separate those who came exclusively from outside the city and its region, and thus, who can be considered creative migrants. Their share in our sample is relatively low, with less than 30 percent of the respondents which confirms the relevance of personal trajectory (table 5). The ratio of creative migrants is the highest in Dublin with 47.4 percent followed by Amsterdam (40.4%), Munich and Toulouse (both 35.3%). On the other hand, Poznan, Barcelona and Milan remain the most sedentary cities also according to this indicator.

Table 5: Types of trajectories

traj1

Total

born in town or local region

born outside but studied in town or region

born and studied outside

 

City

Amsterdam

39.0%

20.6%

40.4%

100,0%

Barcelona

77.9%

10.0%

12.1%

100,0%

Budapest

62.4%

18.8%

18.8%

100,0%

Dublin

32.6%

20.0%

47.4%

100,0%

Helsinki

45.9%

28.8%

25.3%

100,0%

Leipzig

53.8%

12.5%

33.7%

100,0%

Milan

77.1%

6.9%

16.0%

100,0%

Munich

52.1%

12.6%

35.3%

100,0%

Poznan

74.3%

19.9%

5.9%

100,0%

Riga

46.7%

21.0%

32.4%

100,0%

Toulouse

36.8%

27.9%

35.3%

100,0%

Total

55,2%

18.3%

26.5%

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

On the basis of our empirical data the 11 investigated cities can be classified into 3 groups. Most cosmopolitan and open cities appear to be Dublin, Amsterdam, Toulouse and Munich. Most sedentary, inward looking cities are: Barcelona, Milan and Poznan. The third, rather transitory group is comprised by Helsinki, Budapest, Leipzig and Riga. Each group is very heterogeneous in terms of size, geographical location and historical pathway; even though cities of Eastern and Southern Europe tend to be less open than those of the West European core countries. This may serve as one more proof that the migration of creative people does not so much correlate with these factors (size, location, history), but it is more the outcome of the relative weight of creative industries in specific cities and their connectedness to the global economy.

In conclusion, the fifth hypothesis of Richard Florida – the high mobility of “creative” professionals – was not supported by our survey. The overwhelming majority of respondents simply stayed in the city where they were born or graduated. Only respondents in Dublin showed higher level of mobility, but even here, more than 50 percent of respondents was born or studied in the city. Obviously it may still be possible that creative people have been more mobile than the rest of the population. We lack the data to consider that proposition.

Favell (2008) points out that even in selecting a foreign city as a place of residence, European professionals tend to settle in places, that are well connected with their social and family ‘anchors'. Regarding mobility, “creative” people are not much different from other occupation categories in Europe (Gáková & Lewis, 2008; Favell, 2008). Although the low level of labour mobility in Europe is often considered as a factor threatening the economic growth and competitiveness of the continent, it can also be interpreted as a factor providing social stability and preserving cultural diversity within the EU.

In addition to the relatively low mobility of European creative people our survey also revealed an important aspect of policy considerations. The ratio of those who were born elsewhere in the country but studied in the city (18%) was almost as important as the internationally mobile creative professionals (26%). This highlights the importance of universities and higher education institutions in the spatial distribution of creative people in Europe and also suggests the question whether attraction of students or attraction of professionals would be the better strategy if a city wanted to formulate local policy for the strengthening of its creative economy.

Reasons for mobility: the role of ‘soft factors’

Besides the rate of mobility the ACRE survey also presented an opportunity to measure the relative importance of ‘soft factors' in the mobility of creative people, especially in searching a workplace i.e. the sixth hypothesis of Richard Florida.

During the questionnaire survey respondents were asked to rank, in order of importance from 1 to 4 (Rank 1=most important; 4=least important), the four main reasons why they were living and working in that particular city. Table 6 shows results for the whole sample. For the better understanding the most often cited reasons are marked with bold.

Table 6: Reasons for living in the city

Reason

ranked 1

ranked 2
or more

Total citation

1. Born in region

19.7%

10.8%

30.6%

2. Family lives here

17.2%

23.0%

40.2%

3. Studied in city

11.6%

18.5%

30.1%

4. Proximity to friends

7.6%

30.7%

38.3%

5. Moved because of my job

21.1%

12.3%

33.3%

6. Moved because of partner's job

3.5%

6.3%

9.8%

7. Good employment opportunities

7.5%

30.4%

37.9%

8. Higher wages

0.7%

9.0%

9.7%

9. Size of the city

1.7%

19.2%

21.0%

10. Weather / Climate

0.3%

7.0%

7.3%

11. Good transport links

0.8%

11.0%

11.8%

12. Proximity to natural environment

1.5%

14.2%

15.7%

13. Housing affordability

0.8%

5.6%

6.4%

14. Housing availability

0.5%

4.9%

5.4%

15. Housing quality

0.4%

4.5%

4.9%

16. Safe for children

0.1%

3.8%

3.9%

17. Open to different people

0.3%

4.4%

4.7%

18. Open minded and tolerant

0.7%

6.7%

7.4%

19. Gay/lesbian friendly

0.1%

1.7%

1.8%

20. Language

0.2%

3.4%

3.6%

21. Overall friendliness

1.2%

12.7%

14.0%

22. Diversity of leisure and entertainment

1.2%

22.5%

23.7%

23. Cultural diversity

1.2%

15.3%

16.5%

24. Diversity of built environment

0.3%

5.7%

6.0%

25. Presence of good universities

1.1%

8.7%

9.8%

26. Other

0.0%

2.9%

3.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

In order to get a comprehensive overview about the attitude of respondents it is necessary to cluster the reasons into broader categories.

When looking at location factors indicated by respondents, personal trajectory (including ‘born here'; ‘family lives here'; studied here'; ‘proximity to friends') was considered to be the most important reason for living and working in the city. Even if ‘proximity to friends' does not necessarily mean that respondents had lived in the city before, this answer was included in the ‘personal trajectory' category for two reasons: firstly, more detailed analysis revealed that most of the respondents had actually lived in the city before; secondly, mentioning friends as a reason to move to a place means that they belong to the personal trajectory up to the arrival at the present place.

The second category of reasons includes hard factors (answers 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 25) where movement took place most often due to job opportunities (own or partners'), better salaries, the size of the city or good transport connections. Finally, the third category of reasons comprises the possible soft factors such as the natural beauty of the place, the open minded and tolerant character of the city, the diversity of its built environment or gay/lesbian friendly atmosphere etc. (answers 10, 12 to 24).

According to this categorization personal trajectory factors (55.2%) play the most dominant role in the selection of actual place of residence among creative people. This is followed by typical, mostly job-related hard factors (35.9%). It is important to note that ‘soft factors' were indicated by the smallest number of respondents and their weight was subordinated among the total number of reasons mentioned (9%). This result is even more remarkable if we take into account that the number of possible soft factors included in our list far exceeded the other two categories.

To further refine the role of soft factors a variable was produced according to their ranking. As Table 7 shows soft factors hardly appear before rank 3; and only 9 percent of respondents indicated a soft factor as the main reason to settle in the city.

Table 7: Ranking of soft factors by respondents

Frequency

Valid Percent

Valid

soft factors ranked 1

180

9.0%

soft factors ranked 2

368

18.3%

soft factors ranked 3

522

26.0%

soft factors ranked 4

349

17.4%

soft factors NOT ranked

589

29.3%

Total

2008

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

If we cross the synthesis variable regarding the first rank of soft factors and the trajectories typology it can be concluded that soft factors were more often indicated by people who studied in the city (table 8). If we exclude people who did not arrive to their present city from outside and for whom soft factors have not been decisive for choosing the city, we end up with only 79 persons. The fact that ‘sedentary' respondents (born and/or studied locally) mentioned soft factors almost as often as the ‘newcomers' suggests that when answering this question, respondents probably mixed two considerations: why did they move to the city and why did they stay there.

Table 8: Trajectories and reasons
% within traj1

Ranked 1 under trajectories, hard factors and soft factors

Total

rank 1 in "trajectories" (Why_live_city 1-4)

rank 1 in "hard factors" (Why_live_city 5-9,11,25)

rank 1 in "soft factors" (Why_live_city 10, 12-24)

 

traj1

born in town or local region

68.5%

23.3%

8.2%

100.0%

born outside but studied in town or region

54.8%

33.0%

12.3%

100.0%

born and studied outside

19.6%

70.1%

10.3%

100.0%

Total

55.7%

34.7%

9.6%

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

Deeper analysis also revealed that soft factors tend to have more importance if respondents are living in the city for more than one year (table 9). As an opposite the role of hard factors is continuously decreasing with the time spent in the city. This result again implies that hard factors work more as a reason for mobility (why to come), whereas soft factors are more the reason to stay (why not leaving the city).

Table 9: Reasons and spent time in the city
% within Time lived in City

Ranked 1 under trajectories, hard factors and soft factors

Total

Time lived in City

rank 1 in "trajectories" (Why_live_city 1-4)

rank 1 in "hard factors" (Why_live_city 5-9,11,25)

rank 1 in "soft factors" (Why_live_city 10, 12-24)

 

 

Less than one year

20.5%

75.9%

3.6%

100.0%

Between one and 2 years

20.4%

66.7%

12.9%

100.0%

Between 2 and 5 years

33.3%

60.9%

5.7%

100.0%

Between 5 and 10 years

44.2%

43.7%

12.2%

100.0%

More than 10 years

66.6%

24.4%

9.0%

100.0%

Total

53.9%

36.8%

9.3%

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

Our survey showed that soft factors are rarely considered by creative people among the most important reasons why they live in a particular city. They clearly do not play a significant role in attracting creative professionals which means that our sample contradicts the sixth hypothesis of Richard Florida. On the other hand, it is also interesting that soft factors may appear as a reason why these professionals stay in the city.

Variations between European cities

Our survey also provides the opportunity to analyse regional variations why creative people live and work in a particular city. We assume that the role of ‘personal trajectory', ‘hard' and ‘soft' factors differ among cities substantially and it is the result of differences in economic development, culture and geography.

According to our survey personal trajectory factors prevailed in the post-socialist cities of Riga, Poznan and Budapest (table 10). These cities were reintegrated into the circulation of global capital only recently, and they have been less affected by international migration of talent as compared to the West European cities. Personal trajectory played an above average role also in the Mediterranean cities of Milan and Barcelona. Evidently the societies of Southern and Eastern Europe are more family-oriented where social networks play a stronger role than in North-Western Europe. These basic differences in societal and cultural life are clearly reflected in the mobility patterns of our sample.

Table 10: Variations between the cities according to the types of reason
% within City

Ranked 1 under trajectories, hard factors and soft factors

Total

rank 1 in "trajectories" (Why_live_city 1-4)

rank 1 in "hard factors" (Why_live_city 5-9,11,25)

rank 1 in "soft factors" (Why_live_city 10, 12-24)

 

City

Amsterdam

38.5%

35.3%

26.2%

100.0%

Barcelona

62.0%

27.0%

11.0%

100.0%

Budapest

70.6%

24.4%

5.1%

100.0%

Dublin

56.7%

41.8%

1.5%

100.0%

Helsinki

50.8%

38.7%

10.5%

100.0%

Leipzig

42.8%

49.7%

75%

100.0%

Milan

63.9%

31.7%

4.4%

100.0%

Munich

30.3%

59.6%

10.1%

100.0%

Poznan

74.2%

23.2%

2.6%

100.0%

Riga

79.5%

16.7%

3.8%

100.0%

Toulouse

47.1%

424%

10.5%

100.0%

Total

55.2%

35.9%

9.0%

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

Hard factors played the most important role among respondents of the German cities (Munich and Leipzig) and also in Toulouse and Dublin. This is apparently connected with the positive economic dynamics of these cities in the last years, and the availability of affordable housing in case of Leipzig due to large scale vacancy on the housing market. The dominance of hard factors driven by economic success may change because of the current economic crisis, especially in the case of Dublin.

Soft factors were most often mentioned in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Helsinki, Toulouse and Munich. Amsterdam is the city where respondents mentioned soft factors a lot more often than elsewhere. It is also important to note that in Amsterdam the share of respondents grading soft factors in the first rank does not vary too much among persons who were born in the city (27%), persons who studied there (24%) or people coming from another city (30%). The importance of soft factors in these cities can be explained either by a strong historical image (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Munich), or successful ‘branding' of the city in recent years due to its economic success (Helsinki, Toulouse, and to some extent Munich). These cities are commonly known as attractive places to live in Europe. This general perception was translated into the high score of soft factors given by the respondents.

If we have a closer look at the ranks given to soft factors, it can be seen that Amsterdam is the city where they were most often mentioned with rank 1 (besides, sometimes by respondents who were born there or studied there) (table 11). This city demonstrate a successful example of how a strong historical image in combination with more recent city ‘branding' and developed urban governance influence the perception of the city.

Table 11: Variations between cities: ranking the soft factors

 

ransoft_new

Total

soft factors ranked 1

soft factors ranked 2

soft factors ranked 3

soft factors ranked 4

soft factors NOT ranked

 

City

 

 

Amsterdam

26.2%

31.2%

22.2%

10.4%

10.0%

100,0%

Barcelona

11.0%

18.0%

31.0%

22.5%

17.5%

100,0%

Budapest

5.1%

11.2%

28.9%

21.8%

33.0%

100,0%

Dublin

1.5%

15.4%

19.4%

21.4%

42.3%

100,0%

Helsinki

10.5%

8.9%

26.7%

21.5%

32.5%

100,0%

Leipzig

7.5%

25.2%

27.7%

18.2%

21.4%

100,0%

Milan

4.4%

8.7%

20.8%

16.4%

49.7%

100,0%

Munich

10.1%

23.0%

26.4%

14.6%

25.8%

100,0%

Poznan

2.6%

3.9%

21.3%

16.8%

55.5%

100,0%

Riga

3.8%

19.7%

31.1%

15.2%

30.3%

100,0%

Toulouse

10.5%

33.5%

31.9%

12.0%

12.0%

100,0%

Total

9,0%

18.3%

26.0%

17.4%

29.3%

100.0%

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

This picture can be further refined if we consider only the opinion of those respondents who are ‘strangers' in their present location, who came from outside and were neither born nor studied in the city-region (table 12). This group is comprised by 328 respondents in our survey, and their opinion deserves particular attention. In Table 12 the most important reasons are listed for each city where they differ significantly from the average values. Reasons appear in the table if the adjusted standardized residual is higher than 2 (i.e. they are more often cited than the others). Some of the reasons seem to be trivial like, climate for Barcelona and Toulouse, or wages for Dublin. Others confirm the overall importance of housing (Amsterdam, Budapest, Helsinki, Leipzig) and universities (Barcelona, Munich, Poznan) in the place selection process of creative people. Cities for which no particular reason comes up are those whose surveyed people do not differentiate themselves significantly from the whole sample, or cities where data could not be coded for the trajectory.

Table 12: Main variations or reasons for “strangers” (n=328)
(Selection of reasons on standardized adjusted residuals)

Cities

Ranked 1 reasons

Ranked 2, 3 or 4 reasons

Amsterdam

housing affordability (2%)
housing availability (2%)
overall friendliness (7%)
diversity of leisure & entertainment (7%)
cultural diversity (5%)

housing quality (13%)
safe for children (11%)
other (7%)

Barcelona

safe for children (7%)

weather (53%)
open to different people (20%)
good universities (27%)

Budapest

family lives here (18%)
good transport links (4%)
housing quality (4%)

proximity to friends (32%)
higher wages (43%)
diversity of leisure & entertainment (57%)

Dublin

higher wages (11%)

open to different people (14%) language (23%)

Helsinki

housing quality (3%)

family lives here (28%)
size of the city (38%)
good transport links (24%)
housing quality (14%)

Leipzig

my job (77%)

 

housing affordability (30%)
housing availability (17%)
overall friendliness (47%)

Milan

partner's job (20%)

 

employment opportunities (55%)
language (25%)

Munich

natural environment (4%)
good universities (5%)

my partner's job (18%)
employment opportunities (45%) natural environment (35%)

Poznan

studied in city (20%)

employment opportunities (80%)

Riga

proximity to friends (74%)

 

Toulouse

size of the city (9%)
weather (4%)

weather (49%)
natural environment (34%)
overall friendliness (28%)

Data source: ACRE surveys (2007), compiled by the authors

On the whole this table once again confirms the already mentioned important factors: personal links for Budapest, Poznan and Riga ; housing for Leipzig and employment opportunities for both German cities; cultural diversity and openness in Amsterdam and Barcelona. Among other reasons we find the possibility to improve language skills in Dublin and Milan ; an attractive natural environment around the city (Munich, Toulouse) or (unexpectedly!) safety for children in such cities as Amsterdam and Barcelona. Interesting to note that the job (own or partner's job) as an important factor for moving into the city was significantly more often mentioned only in Leipzig, Milan and Munich, which may be in fact interpreted as a ‘no choice' decision.

Conclusions

ACRE project is not the first empirical test of Richard Florida's thesis on the “creative class” in the European context but the first attempt to explore its mobility aspect. Even if the research method and sampling technique may be disputed, our results seem to be robust enough to claim two things: 1) the European creative class is not as mobile as Florida (2002) suggests the creative class should be; 2) the so-called ‘personal trajectory factor' (or ‘personal connection factor') that is not taken into account by Florida and other writers, is very important for the European context. This result is consistent with other empirical results on worker mobility in Europe (Gáková & Lewis, 2008; Favell, 2008).

European creative workers do not seem to be much more mobile than the continental average. What are the reasons for the relatively low mobility compared especially with the creative class of the US? Partly it can be explained by cultural constraints (differences in languages, cultural barriers, less openness towards foreigners, necessity to obtain local know-how to settle down etc.). Another important reason is the presence of strong institutional constraints: differences within the continent in educational and health care systems, limits set by national pension schemes, limits set by legislation about employing migrants, bureaucratic barriers for settling down and starting businesses. Unlike Americans, European creatives remain ‘regionally connected'. According to Favell (2008), even going to live abroad many of the European expats tend to choose locations, from where they could easily come ‘home' for the weekend.

On the other hand, the majority of respondents in our survey was born or studied in the region where they currently live, which suggests that not only international but also long-distance national migration plays a subordinated role in their life. This can be explained by the strong embeddedness of European talent workers to the local labour markets through personal networks, or the particular functioning of the housing market of European countries which may impede mobility. The ‘rooted territoriality' is one of the important conditions for the preservation of cultural diversity in Europe. It keeps the patchwork of national distinctions and local customs in a sustainable shape (Favell, 2008).

We should also note that in this study we considered only long-term mobility, when workers moved to another city for several years. We have good reasons to believe that a more intense short-term mobility allows European creative workers to develop wide-ranging personal networks including lots of international contacts. For those European creative workers, who came to a new place during their professional career, hard (mainly job related) factors have determined their decisions more, leaving the soft factors with a very marginal role. This brings us to the conclusion that hypothesis 5 and 6 of Florida's theory do not apply for Europe, at least our sample does not confirm their relevance.

Why Florida's theory does not seem to apply to the European context? The fact that Europeans are less mobile than North Americans is only the first possible answer. In addition, our results, combined with American criticism of Florida's theory, also suggest another explanation: the theory has serious defects, at least regarding its geographical aspect. The theory relies heavily on a model of mobility where workers are not only mobile, but also make location choices in the same way that they choose a trip for a vacation week, comparing cities and their quality. This model does not take into account that workers are linked to persons or particular places where they lived before. It also overestimates the importance of choosing a city when workers move to another job, and it underestimates the importance of choosing the neighbourhood within an urban area. It may be less important to choose between Birmingham and Munich than between one district or another in Birmingham or Munich. For creative people searching for a location, hard factors (mainly quality of jobs) are the reasons why they choose a particular city and soft factors determine why they choose a certain district.

Florida's model may work for single young professionals or bohemians looking for inspiration or a quick career and ready to take off at any moment if they see a better chance. But it does not seem to apply to families with children in a school age, when a perspective of another language and a novel cultural environment may become a serious obstacle. It may also not work for middle-aged couples, where one of the partners is professionally connected with a certain European area or where the adjustment to other pension rules would also be seriously considered.

However, Florida's paradigm can be further refined too. Taking into account the role of soft factors, it can be said, that they play only a marginal role in the attraction of the members of creative class to a city. However, they play a more important role in retaining them in a city, which justifies policies aiming at retaining people more than attracting them. This hypothesis can not be fully tested with our data, even if some answers about soft factors suggest that it might work. For a proper exploration of this thread data on the reasons why creative people leave a city would additionally be needed.

REFERENCES

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Bourdin, A. (2005) La ‘Classe créative' existe-t-elle?, Revue Urbanisme n°344, http://www.urbanisme.fr/issue/report.php?code=344&code_menu=FOCUS

CCPR (Centre for Cultural Policy Research) (2003) Baseline study on Hong Kong creative industries. For the Central Policy Unit. Hong Kong. Special Administrative Region Government. Prepared by CCPR. University of Hong Kong.

Favell, A. (2008) Eurostars and Eurocities: Free movement and mobility in an integrating Europe. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.

Florida, R. (2002) The rise of the creative class and how it's transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. Basic Books, New York.

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NOTES

* Hélène Martin-Brelot is a post-doctoral researcher in the University of Toulouse II Le Mirail, Email: hmb@univ-tlse2.fr

** Michel Grossetti is the Director of the Research Centre of Rationality and Knowledge, University of Toulouse II Le Mirail, Email: rgros@univ-tlse2.fr

*** Denis Eckert is the Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre of Urban Studies in the University of Toulouse II Le Mirail, Email: eckert@univ-tlse2.fr

**** Olga Gritsai is the manager of ACRE, a EU funded international project, coordinated by the Amsterdam Institute of Metropolitan and Development Studies, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Email: O.Gritsai@uva.nl

***** Zoltán Kovacs is a senior researcher at the Geographical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and a professor in human geography at the University of Budapest, Email: zkovacs@mail.iif.hu

1. http://acre.socsci.uva.nl/

2. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Budapest, Dublin, Helsinki, Leipzig, Milan, Munich, Poznan, Riga, Toulouse.

3. The authors would like to thank Juliane Engsig for merging and recoding the different data files produced by the teams involved in the ACRE project, during her internship at LISST, University of Toulouse (2008).

4. Tables 3, 4 and 5 have been computed without the part of the sample dedicated to former students, in order to avoid any overestimation of the respondents who studied in the city or who were born there. For tables 6 to 11, we kept the sub-sample of former graduates, after we checked that it has no significant effect on these tables.

 


Edited and posted on the web on 10th June 2009