A Note on the Use of Amenities to Attract Creative Class Members to a City

Batabyal, Amitrajeet and Yoo, Seung Jick (2020): A Note on the Use of Amenities to Attract Creative Class Members to a City.

Abstract

We study the decision problem faced by a city authority (CA) who seeks to attract members of the creative class to his city by providing amenities. Creative class members care about their own incomes and about the amenities that the city provides. We construct a stylized model of this interaction and shed light on three questions. First, we determine how much additional income must be paid to a representative creative class member to maintain her utility if amenities are withdrawn. Second, we compute the cost of generating amenity benefits that equal a specific fraction of the representative creative class member’s income. Finally, we discuss whether the provision of amenity benefits is a cost-effective way of raising the representative creative class member’s utility.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Amenity Benefits, City Authority, Cost-Effectiveness, Creative Class, Income
• Subjects: R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics > R11 - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R5 - Regional Government Analysis > R50 - General

References

Batabyal, A.A., and Beladi, H. 2018. Artists, engineers, and aspects of economic growth in a creative region, Economic Modelling, 71, 214-219.

Batabyal, A.A., and Yoo, S.J. 2020. When is competition between cities for members of the creative class efficient? Unpublished Manuscript, Rochester Institute of Technology.

Dalwai, W. 2016. Urban cultural amenities and the migration of the creative class, Thuenen Series of Applied Economic Theory 143, University of Rostock, Germany.

Florida, R. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books, New York, NY.

Florida, R. 2003. Cities and the creative class, City and Community, 2, 3-19.

Florida, R. 2005. The Flight of the Creative Class. Harper Business, New York, NY.

Florida, R. 2008. Who’s Your City? Basic Books, New York, NY.

Florida, R. 2014. The creative class and economic development, Economic Development Quarterly, 28, 196-205.

Qian, H. 2010. Talent, creativity and regional economic performance: The case of China, Annals of Regional Science, 45, 133-156.

Rao, Y., and Dai, D. 2017. Creative class concentrations in Shanghai, China: What is the role of neighborhood social tolerance and life quality supportive conditions? Social Indicators Research, 132, 1237-1246.

Smiley, K.T., Rushing, W., and Scott, M. 2016. Behind a bicycling boom: Governance, cultural change and place character in Memphis, Tennessee, Urban Studies, 53, 193-209.

Van Holm, E.J. 2014. Leisure choices of the creative class, Cities, 41, 38-43.

Vossen, D., Sternberg, R., and Alfken, C. 2019. Internal migration of the ‘creative class’ in Germany, Regional Studies, 53, 1359-1370.