Localisation and determinants of the creative class in the peri-urban areas. The case of Northern Italy

Abstract

This article analyses the Creative Class localisation and its determinants in the peri-urban areas of Northern Italy.

Florida's hypothesis on the localisation patterns of the creative class, based on the famous 3Ts (Talent, Technology and Tolerance), has been largely debated and sometimes discredited due to the shaky conceptual foundations of some of the variables on which it is based (e.g. the Gay Index) or the excessive focus on urban areas, which gave rise to worrying implications in terms of deepening socio-economic inequalities between urban and non-urban territories.

This paper seeks to deal with some of these limitations by reconsidering Florida's determinants as well as using new innovative means to define them. It also extends the analysis to a yet unexplored territory, the peri-urban areas, which occupies a third of the European territory and attracts creative people whilst still being closely integrated with urban economies.

These new hypotheses have been tested specifically by PCA and spatial regression models to the peri-urban municipalities in the regions of Northern Italy, the most creative regions in Italy. Here, the creative class results unevenly distributed as is greater in the municipalities closest to the urban centres and decreases in the ones furthest away. Its presence is strongly associated with socio-economic determinants (public expenditure, presence of creative and non-creative firms, volunteering), less to cultural amenities and technology. Tolerance has more controversial appealing affects.