I recently read an article by Erik Stam, Jeroen P.J. de Jong, and Gerard Marlet called “Creative Industries in the Netherlands: Structure, Development, Innovativeness and Effects of Urban Growth.” Part of their research documented in this article looks at the effects of the creative industries and the creative class on innovation and urban economic growth. The difference between the two is that the creative industries is defined by industry sectors (e.g., NAICS codes), and the creative class is defined by occupations. I think the conclusions they draw from their research is quite interesting and very useful for economic development policy.

The analyses show that, with the exception of the metropolitan city of Amsterdam, there is no relation of the presence of creative industries with employment growth. In general, it seems that a concentration of creative industries is a less important determinant for employment growth in cities than a concentration of creative people/creative class. Creative industries do not seem to act as a catalyst for the effect of knowledge (spillovers) on urban economic growth in general. This seems to occur only in the metropolitan city of Amsterdam. This role is ore likely to be taken by the creative class, which was shown to have a much stronger relation with employment growth than the creative industries. If the objective of local economic policy is employment growth, improving living conditions for the creative class…could be more effective than creating conditions for stimulating the creative industries, which is currently widespread policy in the Netherlands…If the objective is not specifically employment growth, but is more focused on the innovativeness of the business population, creating conditions to stimulate the creative industries seems a reasonable policy, as we have shown that firms in the creative industries are more innovative than firms in other industries. However, our study shows that the creative industries are very heterogeneous; businesses in the distinctive domains face different constraints. One policy to stimulate all the creative industries will be less effective than more specific policies tailored to the nature of the specific domains.

Our findings call for a focus on living conditions and labour markets…attracting and retaining individuals in the creative class, instead of business conditions for attracting firms belonging to the creative industries if growth in cities is the objective. Only in very specific urban environments, such as the metropolitan city of Amsterdam, does a policy to attract and stimulate business activities in the creative industries seem to be justified. Perhaps metropolitan environments distinguish themselves from other lower order cities by their intensive social and cultural activity (including creative industries) that provides a source of inspiration for other economic activities…, the local ‘buzz’ of unpredictable, innovative interactions…(pp. 128-129).

I agree with their conclusion that economic development is more about attracting people than attracting companies, but there has to be a place for the creative class to work, so it is also important that the appropriate conditions exist within a metropolitan economy to stimulate the creation, growth, and attraction of creative industry businesses as well. In other words, it is important, as it always has been, that innovation be catalyzed for an urban economy to develop, which brings us back to their point about the importance of creative industries in fostering innovation.

(The article cited in this post was published in the journal Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography in 2008.)