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Nordic City Regions in the Creative Class Debate: Putting the Creative Class Thesis to a Test

Andersen, Kristina Vaarst ; Kalsø Hansen, Høgni LU ; Isaksen, Arne and Raunio, Mika (2010) In Industry and Innovation 17(2). p.215-240
Abstract
The Nordic countries have a quite different urban structure and social systems than the USA. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden may then constitute a critical test of the empirical reach of Richard Florida's much cited creative class thesis beyond its empirical basis in the USA. This paper employs comparative statistics to examine the importance of the quality of place in attracting members of the creative class to Nordic city regions, and it analyses the role of the creative class for regional economic development. Florida's original study focused only on city regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Our statistical analyses mainly support Florida's results with regard to these larger Nordic city regions. The paper, however, also... (More)
The Nordic countries have a quite different urban structure and social systems than the USA. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden may then constitute a critical test of the empirical reach of Richard Florida's much cited creative class thesis beyond its empirical basis in the USA. This paper employs comparative statistics to examine the importance of the quality of place in attracting members of the creative class to Nordic city regions, and it analyses the role of the creative class for regional economic development. Florida's original study focused only on city regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Our statistical analyses mainly support Florida's results with regard to these larger Nordic city regions. The paper, however, also analyses smaller city regions, which are important in the Nordic urban structure. The findings are clearly less supportive for these smaller regions, which mean that the original creative class approach has to be considerably refined when used in the Nordic context. (Less)
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Regional growth, creative class, Nordic countries
in
Industry and Innovation
volume
17
issue
2
pages
215 - 240
publisher
Routledge
external identifiers
  • wos:000277476000004
  • scopus:77951654467
ISSN
1366-2716
DOI
10.1080/13662711003633496
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
7215c0d0-c51b-4634-8c2f-9a6063017abf (old id 1618597)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 13:52:25
date last changed
2024-01-09 19:34:13
@article{7215c0d0-c51b-4634-8c2f-9a6063017abf,
  abstract     = {{The Nordic countries have a quite different urban structure and social systems than the USA. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden may then constitute a critical test of the empirical reach of Richard Florida's much cited creative class thesis beyond its empirical basis in the USA. This paper employs comparative statistics to examine the importance of the quality of place in attracting members of the creative class to Nordic city regions, and it analyses the role of the creative class for regional economic development. Florida's original study focused only on city regions with more than 100,000 inhabitants. Our statistical analyses mainly support Florida's results with regard to these larger Nordic city regions. The paper, however, also analyses smaller city regions, which are important in the Nordic urban structure. The findings are clearly less supportive for these smaller regions, which mean that the original creative class approach has to be considerably refined when used in the Nordic context.}},
  author       = {{Andersen, Kristina Vaarst and Kalsø Hansen, Høgni and Isaksen, Arne and Raunio, Mika}},
  issn         = {{1366-2716}},
  keywords     = {{Regional growth; creative class; Nordic countries}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{2}},
  pages        = {{215--240}},
  publisher    = {{Routledge}},
  series       = {{Industry and Innovation}},
  title        = {{Nordic City Regions in the Creative Class Debate: Putting the Creative Class Thesis to a Test}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13662711003633496}},
  doi          = {{10.1080/13662711003633496}},
  volume       = {{17}},
  year         = {{2010}},
}