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The idea behind this project to develop a matrix for Peterborough that shows which specific occupations are employed in which specific industries and then to compare the matrix for Peterborough with selected benchmark regions. If complete detailed employment data for all residents was available, such a matrix could be easily constructed. However, that is not that case. And while some sampled data is available, other more detailed information is limited to either industries or occupations.

The economic crisis has challenged popular conceptions of economic growth, both in terms of what it is and how to measure it. While engendering growth and bolstering competitiveness remain high on the agenda, immediate attention has shifted to creating jobs, lifting wages, addressing inequality, and fostering long-term, sustainable prosperity. This new edition of the Global Creativity Index (GCI), which we first introduced in 2004, provides a powerful lens through which to assess these issues.

Women have become an increasingly important force in the U.S. labor market and especially in its knowledge based creative economy. Some argue that the economic crisis has tilted the playing field away from men, who have borne the brunt of blue collar job losses, and towards women, who are more concentrated in knowledge and service work.

The results of Toronto Public Library’s economic impact study clearly demonstrate that Toronto Public Library delivers a strong Return on Investment, through the delivery of library services that enhance Toronto’s competitiveness and prosperity and contribute to a better quality of life for all. This study is the first Canadian public library study to measure in concrete economic terms the Return on Investment for library service.

Cities have always been the natural economic units of the world. But over the past several decades, clusters of cities and city regions have grown outward and into each other, forming mega-regions. More than just a collection of cities or one giant city, a mega-region is greater than the sum of its parts.

High tech startups are taking an urban turn. Manhattan and Brooklyn, downtown San Francisco, and Santa Monica are all becoming tech hubs. This is a new development. While large urban centers have historically been sources of venture capital, the high tech startups they funded were mainly, if not exclusively, located in suburban campuses in California’s Silicon Valley, Boston’s Route 128 corridor, the Research Triangle of North Carolina, and in the suburbs of Austin and Seattle. But high tech development, startup activity, and venture investment have recently begun to shift to urban centers and also to close-in, mixed-use, transit-oriented walkable suburbs. This report, which is based on unique data from the National Venture Capital Association, Thompson Reuters and Dow Jones, examines this emergent urban shift in high tech startup activity and venture capital investment.

Design is playing an increasingly vital role in innovation, competitiveness and the determination of economic value. However, assessing the impact of design or isolating the design factor can be a challenge for a number of reasons. Design is an enabling discipline, and designers working with professionals from other disciplines add value to the process and to the end result. Design is also a crucial factor in many activities that successful organizations do well, from innovation and new product development, to operations and human resource management, to communications and branding. And like most serious organizational strategies, design is not a quick fix. It requires investment over time and commitment from organizational leaders in order to deliver significant returns.

Class is an inescapable presence in America, one that influences almost every aspect of our lives—from our education and employment to our income, our politics, and even our health.

Class is also inscribed on our very geography.

Class is more than a socio-economic construct; its divides are inscribed on the geography of cities and metro areas.

Just as the rise of the knowledge economy has created a job market that is split between high wage knowledge jobs and lower wage service jobs, middle class neighborhoods have been hollowed out as the geography of cities and metropolitan areas has become increasingly divided between rich and poor neighborhoods. Recent research shows that Canada’s major metro areas, notably Toronto and Vancouver, have fallen victim to these urban class divides.

Class is an inescapable presence in America, one that influences almost every aspect of our lives—from our education and employment to our income, our politics, and even our health. Class increasingly divides America’s cities and metros as well.

Our research examines the role of airports in regional development. Specifically, we examine two things: (1) the factors associated with whether or not a metro will have an airport, and (2) the effect of airport activities on regional economic development. Based on multiple regression analysis for U.S. metros, our research generates four key findings. First, airports are more likely to be located in larger metros with higher shares of cultural workers and warmer winters. Second, airports add significantly to regional development measured as economic output per capita. Third, the effect of airports on regional development occurs through two channels—their capacity to move both people and cargo, with the former being somewhat more important. Fourth, the impact of airports on regional development varies with their size and scale.

Americans have become increasingly sorted over the past couple of decades by income, education, and class. A large body of research has focused on the dual migrations of more affluent and skilled people and the less advantaged across the United States. Increasingly, Americans are sorting not just between cities and metro areas, but within them as well.

Cities and metro areas around the world are experiencing an uptick in economic inequality and Canada is not immune. Yet the country’s three largest metros remain substantially less divided than their U.S. counterparts.

Economic segregation—the separation of advantaged and disadvantage groups into separate enclaves—compounds this inequality, creating different levels of access to educational and economic resources for groups at the top, middle, and bottom of the economic ladder.

Rich or poor, the promise of social mobility always lay at the heart of the American Dream. But over the past two decades, many Americans have watched that dream slowly fade as the country becomes increasingly sorted by income, education, and class.

Segregated City, a new Martin Prosperity Institute study by Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander, tracks the extent of economic segregation (the degree to which neighborhoods are made up of people of the same economic level) across America’s metropolitan areas. While most previous studies of economic segregation have focused exclusively on income, this study develops detailed measures of income, educational, and occupational segregation, which are then combined in an index of Overall Economic Segregation.

Overall Economic Segregation

In the 1990s, in the early days of the internet, the common prediction was that cities would become obsolete. New technologies would unshackle us from traditional work locations, allowing us to ‘telecommute’ from wherever we pleased. Twenty years later, not only are our largest cities generating the most and best new jobs, they are concentrated in very specific neighbourhoods depending on the industry.

Tourism is a major human activity in the modern age with significant impacts in many countries. Almost 1 billion people travel each year to a foreign destination and experience life in another place. Those who see tourists have a variety of feelings regarding the merits and problems associated with having strangers in their midst. Tourism is an important feature of life in many places in Mexico and a critical element in the economy of the country…

Creative occupations are now widely seen as a basis for urban economic prosperity. Yet the transitional pathways from a city’s current economy to a more creative economy are often difficult to discern or to navigate. Here we use a network perspective of occupational interdependencies to address questions of urban transitions to a creative economy. This perspective allows us to assess alternative pathways and to compare cities with regard to their progress along these pathways. We find that U.S. urban areas follow a general trajectory towards a creative economy that requires them to increasingly specialize, not only in creative occupations, but also in non-creative ones – presumably because certain non-creative occupations complement the tasks performed by related creative occupations. This secondary phenomenon creates a pull towards non-creative occupations that becomes ever stronger as a city moves more towards a creative economy. Thus, cities transitioning to more creative economies

Capitalism is in the midst of an epochal transformation from its previous industrial model to a new one based on creativity and knowledge. In place of the natural resources and large-scale industries that powered the growth of industrial capitalism, the growth of creative capitalism turns on knowledge, innovation, and talent. Growth and prosperity turn on a new model we term the 3Ts of economic development — talent, technology,and tolerance.

This paper examines references to race and ethnicity in 791 campaign flyers, brochures, door hangers, and direct mail pieces that 227 candidates for city council distributed during the 2014 Toronto and 2015 Chicago municipal elections. The findings pinpoint electoral campaigning as a major source of ethno-racial meaning. Candidates engaged race and ethnicity in five ways. They invoked ethno-racial stratification or cultural symbols and practices, cited endorsements from ethno-racial leaders and organizations, used heritage languages, and visually represented members of ethno- racial groups. The use of these references in Chicago and Toronto was consistent with the cities’ reputations, and the paper illuminates how these reputations are produced and reproduced. Black and Latino candidates in Chicago primarily mobilized perceptions of exclusion, discrimination, and conflict to promise political leadership in fighting these injustices. In Toronto, candidates of all backgrounds portrayed i

In September, 2015 Toronto Life released their October issue including a ranking of Toronto’s best neighbourhoods. The Martin Prosperity Institute contributed to this article by collecting and compiling the data behind this ranking, as well as defining the methodology for scoring and ranking Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods. Data was acquired from a number of sources including the City of Toronto, Statistics Canada, the Fraser Institute, the Toronto Police Service, and the Centre for Research on Inner City Health.

Canada sits at an economic crossroads. Historically, the national economy was largely defined by its ability to extract and export natural resources. The country’s recent slide into recession, thanks to lagging world oil prices, is a stark reminder that busts accompany the booms associated with the nation’s dependence on natural endowments. Yet, for the past decade or so, Canada’s leadership has created a narrative that its resource-rich west is the primary source of long-run prosperity for the country.

Small in population but vast in physical endowments, Canada’s fortunes have long been tied to its natural resources.1 The country’s recent slide into recession, thanks to lagging world oil prices, is a stark reminder of the busts that come with the booms created by the nation’s dependence on its natural endowments.2 A well-known malady of resource-rich nations is the so-called “resource curse,” where the short-term wealth derived from resources inhibits the development of other, more long-running and sustainable sources of wealth-creation and economic development.3 And of course, resource-based economies are perpetually at the mercy of external economic-forces, exposing them to shocks that can quickly turn a boom into a bust. For the past decade or so, Canada’s leadership has created a narrative that its resource-rich west is the primary source of long-run prosperity for the country.