Creative Destruction? Creative firms, workers and residential gentrification

An established theoretical and case study literature discusses how the creative industries, and Creative City policies, may drive neighbourhood gentrification. However, this literature is inconclusive on the size of these links; whether creative activity drives neighbourhood change or follows it, and how this happens; and differences across creative firms, workers and activities, notably the role of artists and ‘the arts’ versus other creative sectors. This paper seeks to clarify these questions by testing the links between creative activity presence and residential gentrification. We explore these issues for neighbourhoods in England and Wales, using rich microdata on creative firms and workers for the 2000s and 2010s. We find that the overall links between localised creative activity and subsequent gentrification is small, even in the most creatively-dense neighbourhoods. The role of creative firms is more stable, but substantively smaller, than that of creative workers. The overall picture hides important variations across places, properties and activity types

“The grass is greener on the other side”:The relationship between the Brexit referendum results and spatial inequalities at the local level

Despite seven decades of development of the European Union project, on 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom, Europe and the rest of the world were surprised when the Leave campaign won the Brexit referendum, offering an extraordinary case study for researchers. We spatially disaggregate the vote share data, which allows us to explore where anti-European sentiment took root in the UK and why. In this paper, a spatial dependence model is applied to clarify and quantify the relevance of the different dimensions - demographic, cultural/educational and economic - that play a role in explaining the rise of support for the Leave campaign. The analysis is conducted at the local level, using local authorities (LAs) as the spatial unit of analysis due to the combination of official datasets with newly generated data in the context of an EU H2020 project. A new indicator capturing the affluence of each local area relative to its close neighbours is proposed and included in the model. In general, we observe that most of the main conclusions obtained by large regions or at the national level also hold at the local scale. However, it is particularly interesting that inequalities by LAs are clearly significant, indicating a marked influence on voters' decisions that have thus far been unaccounted for. This result provides further support for the existence of, to use Andrés Rodriguez-Pose's terminology, an even more intense "revenge of the places that do not matter" at the local scale.A pesar de siete décadas de desarrollo del proyecto de la Unión Europea, el 23 de junio de 2016, el Reino Unido, Europa y el resto del mundo se vieron sorprendidos cuando la campaña Leave ganó el referéndum de Brexit, lo que ofreció un estudio de caso extraordinario para la investigación. En este artículo se desagregaron espacialmente los datos de distribución del voto, lo que permitió examinar en dónde arraigó el sentimiento antieuropeo en el Reino Unido y por qué. Se aplicó un modelo de dependencia espacial para aclarar y cuantificar la relevancia de las diferentes dimensiones (demográfica, cultural/educativa y económica) que intervienen en la explicación del aumento del apoyo a la campaña Leave. El análisis se realizó a nivel local, utilizando las autoridades locales (AL) como unidad espacial de análisis debido a la combinación de conjuntos de datos oficiales con datos recién generados en el contexto de un proyecto Horizonte 2020 de la UE. Se propone un nuevo indicador que capta la prosperidad de cada área local en relación con sus vecinas cercanas, que se incluyó en el modelo. En general, se observó que la mayoría de las conclusiones principales obtenidas por las grandes regiones o a nivel nacional aplican también a escala local. Sin embargo, es especialmente interesante que las desigualdades a nivel de AL son claramente significativas, lo que indica una marcada influencia en las decisiones de los votantes que hasta ahora no se han tenido en cuenta. Este resultado proporciona apoyo adicional a la existencia de, según la terminología de Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, una "venganza de los sitios que no importan" aún más intensa a escala local

Creative Clusters and Creative Multipliers: Evidence from UK Cities

Economic geographers have paid much attention to the cultural and creative industries, both for their propensity to cluster in urban settings, and their potential to drive urban economic development. However, evidence on the latter is surprisingly sparse. In this paper we explore the long-term, causal impacts of the cultural and creative industries on surrounding urban economies. Adapting Moretti’s local multipliers framework, we build a new 20-year panel of UK cities, using historical instruments to identify causal effects of creative activity on non-creative firms and employment. We find that each creative job generates at least 1.9 non-tradable jobs between 1998 and 2018. Prior to 2007, these effects seem more rooted in creative services employees’ local spending than visitors to creative amenities. Given the low numbers of creative jobs in most cities, the overall impact of the creative multiplier is small. On average, the creative sector is responsible for over 16% of non-tradable job growth in our sample, though impacts will be larger in bigger clusters. We do not find the same effects for workplaces, and find no causal evidence for spillovers from creative activity to other tradable sectors. In turn, this implies that ‘creative city’ policies will have partial, uneven local economic impacts. Given extensive urban clusters of creative activity in many countries, our results hold value beyond the UK setting

Do creative industries generate multiplier effects? Evidence from UK cities, 1997-2018

The creative industries have received much attention from economic geographers and others, both for their propensity to co-locate in urban settings and their potential to drive urban economic development. However, evidence on the latter is surprisingly sparse. In this paper we explore the long-term, causal impacts of the creative industries on surrounding urban economies. Adapting Moretti’s local multipliers framework, we build a new 20-year panel of UK cities, using fixed effects and a historic instrument to identify effects on non-creative firms and employment. We find that each creative job generate at least 1.9 non-tradable jobs between 1998 and 2018: this is associated with creative business services employees’ local spending, rather than visitors to urban amenities such as galleries and museums. We do not find the same effects for workplaces, and find no causal evidence for spillovers from creative activity to other tradable sectors, findings consistent with descriptive evidence on the increasing concentration of creative industries in a small number of cities. Given the small numbers of creative jobs in most cities, however, the overall effect size of the creative multiplier is small, and shapes only a small part of non-tradable urban employment change. Overall, our results suggest creative economy-led policies for cities can have positive – albeit partial – local economic impact

Creative Clusters and Creative Multipliers: Evidence from UK Cities

Economic geographers have paid much attention to the cultural and creative industries, both for their propensity to cluster in urban settings, and their potential to drive urban economic development. However, evidence on the latter is surprisingly sparse. In this paper we explore the long-term, causal impacts of the cultural and creative industries on surrounding urban economies. Adapting Moretti’s local multipliers framework, we build a new 20-year panel of UK cities, using historical instruments to identify causal effects of creative activity on non-creative firms and employment. We find that each creative job generates at least 1.9 non-tradable jobs between 1998 and 2018. Prior to 2007, these effects seem more rooted in creative services employees’ local spending than visitors to creative amenities. Given the low numbers of creative jobs in most cities, the overall impact of the creative multiplier is small. On average, the creative sector is responsible for over 16% of non-tradable job growth in our sample, though impacts will be larger in bigger clusters. We do not find the same effects for workplaces, and find no causal evidence for spillovers from creative activity to other tradable sectors. In turn, this implies that ‘creative city’ policies will have partial, uneven local economic impacts. Given extensive urban clusters of creative activity in many countries, our results hold value beyond the UK setting

Universities, students and regional economies: a symbiotic relationship?

This paper examines the heterogeneous effect of student spending in UK NUTS-2 regions. Impact analyses of the more than £45 billion students spend each year have so far been agnostic of the regional absorptive capacity to benefit from this expenditure. Building a multi-regional input–output model for the UK and combining it with data on student expenditure, domicile and level of study, the paper finds significant regional heterogeneity in gross value added and employment multipliers as well as in interregional spillovers. The analysis shows how important student expenditure is for regional economies and the symbiotic relationship between student spending and regional industrial structures that produce varying impact outcomes