Exploring the Complexity of Location Choices of the Creative Class in Europe: Evidence from the EU Labor Force Survey 1995–2010

Kai Zhao,Yuesheng Zhang,Jinkai Zhao

doi:10.3390/su12041687

Abstract

This paper proposes a new idea for the current argument over Florida’s cultural policies, as location choices of the creative class is a complex process involving some basic aspects of socio-economic progress. Based on the European Labor Force Survey (EU LFE) dataset, tolerance and openness indicators which represent the quality of a “people climate” are found to be positively correlated with the creative class’s location in large regions and less so in smaller ones, where business climate-related parameters, i.e., the quality of local governments and the location of universities, have stronger positive effects on locational choices of the creative class. Moreover, graduates with non-creative jobs and creative professionals (i.e., workers who provide creative solutions during the work process such as high-tech technicians or legal and healthcare workers) are concerned more about the people climate, while creative workers with a degree and a creative core (e.g., workers who provide original ideas such as scientists, engineers and artists) are more likely to prioritize a business climate. Therefore, we argue that the promotion of a “tolerant” climate, as Florida advocates, is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, policy makers should appropriately relate different preferences of creative workers to their unique strengths. This provides more insights into defining the concept of creativity beyond prioritized individual success, as well as understanding the preferences and actual needs of highly skilled workers in Europe.

Highlights

The early growth theories such as the classical location theory focused on the effect of large industries or firms’ agglomeration
The data were obtained from the EU LFS covering the period between 1995 and 2010.As the regional account is available in the EU LFS dataset (i.e., 3-digit level occupation category and 2-digit level region category), the variables employed in this study can be generated at the regional level, including the share of the creative class/non-creative workers over the total population
We explicitly model the locational choice of creative class (LCR) as the function of the locational choices of bohemians (LB), foreign-born workers (LO), university teachers (LT), the quality of local social provision (S) and the effect of local political institution (L and LEQI)

Summary

Introduction

The early growth theories such as the classical location theory focused on the effect of large industries or firms’ agglomeration. In the age of Fordism, the role of firms, those that were multinational enterprises, were further highlighted, and decentralized, non-standardized production process was considered as the most important factor in determining the economic performance of a region or even a nation [3]. If the concept of economic sustainability is defined as a particular type of development that should not damage resources for future development and should remain for the long term [4], the role of human capital has yet been examined in that context; in most cases, it was only seen as a cost to be minimized. With the notable feature of non-standardized production, discussing the sustainable economic growth based on the context of the rise of knowledge economy seemed to focus much more on the concept of human capital [5]. Because human capital is an abstract concept, the role of human capital within the process of sustainable economic growth has been widely discussed

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