Chapter 5: Rethinking the Dimensions of the Creative City: Beyond Urban Amenity

Creative city theory has gained much popularity and has become a policy scenario for cities around the world (Gross et al., 2021). Cultural facilities have been positioned as a central element and deployed as a means to attract the creative class. This reasoning has led cities to embark on huge promotional projects of investment in expensive facilities, thinking that this can make any place a hip city and a tolerant living environment that can be a magnet for the creative class. In this chapter, we sought to determine the most discriminating/influential dimensions of creativity, using a wide range of variables in the Global Power City Index (GPCI) and the Legatum Prosperity Index data and employing a variety of semi-supervised learning controlled by alignment tests, as well as the Random Forest regression algorithm. Our results show that, consistent with Florida’s thesis, cultural amenity-based strategies are a crucial lever of urban prosperity. They are followed by the extent of infrastructure that enables trade and market access. Therefore, what attracts talent also affects the ability to attract business but to a lesser degree. We also show that social tolerance, the basic tenet of Florida’s thesis, does not appear to be a sufficient indicator to explain differences in urban development across cities rather it is urban amenities that matter most. Their presence is a strong signal for talent, for economic actors, and also for companies looking for a favorable environment to set up and develop. Thus, attracting the creative class is not a matter of sprinkling culture and cultural facilities here and there but of placing them at the heart of a system of economic development that also aims at the blossoming of investments and market access conditions.