Determinants of rural creative microclustering: Evidence from web‐scraped data for England

Abstract

This study aims to compare the drivers of clustering of rural and urban creative industries in England, UK. We use pre‐pandemic web‐scraped data from 154,618 creative industry organisations in England, and use a novel technique to identify 71 distinct rural creative ‘microclusters’ of geographically proximate creative firms. We then consider the role of place‐based assets and agglomeration in the presence of microclusters at a micro‐level geography and find that the determinants of microclustering are generally consistent between rural and urban areas. On that basis we argue that policies to support creative clusters may drive rural regional development.