The Spatiality of the Creative Digital Economy: Local Amenities to the Spatial Agglomeration of Creative E-Freelancers in China

Abstract

The digital transformation of contemporary economy has led to an increasing number of new forms of occupation, such as the creative e-Freelancers. These self-employed individuals, in general, in design-oriented sectors, enjoy a highly flexible mode of business operation regarding their location choice of workplace; which reflects the implications of digital technologies on the spatiality of the creative economy. However, it was observed by recent literature that the space of the creative digital economy has not become more dispersed, but appeared to be another sort of agglomeration economy. In order to unfold the agglomeration mechanism of creative e-Freelancers, and shed further light on the spatial reconstruction process of economic geography in the digital era, the paper at hand empirically investigates the spatiality of creative e-Freelancers in China following an amenity-based approach. The findings suggest that the creative e-Freelancers in China tend to gather in some metropolises, while a strong rebalancing force has been noticed in reshaping the existing urban and economic system. The creative e-Freelancing workforce is significantly driven by local amenities, such as richness of human capital (e.g., college students), entrepreneur-friendly milieu for e-Business, a high quality of life supported by easy accessibility to leisure facilities and public transport, as well as affluent cultural heritages. Some second-rank cities particularly benefit from this phenomenon.