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Files / Working Papers

The rise of urban tech: how innovations for cities come from cities

Cities have been intertwined with technological innovation since the dawn of human civilization. Ancient cities were the centres for advances such as cave paintings, rudimentary
written language, toolmaking, and the first urban walls which were erected in Mesopotamia c.3000 BCE. Today, cities and innovation are more inextricably connected than ever. A substantial literature already documents the role played by density, cities and urbanization in the process of innovation. But now increasingly cities are not only the platforms for innovation but also

admin
September 20, 2021
Files / Working Papers

Discontent and its geographies

Everywhere you look around the globe, discontent in various shapes and forms is rising. Over the past decade or so, a wave of right-wing populism surged in advanced countries and the developing world as well. This can be seen not just in the election of Donald Trump in the USA, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, but also of course in the rise of Brexit in the UK, of Rob Ford in Toronto and the rise of Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Viktor Orban’s Fidesz in Hungary, Italy’s Northern League, the Golden Dawn in Greece, France’s National Rally, the Swiss People’s Party, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Swedish Democrats, the Danish People’s Party and more.

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August 17, 2021
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The geography of COVID‑19 in Sweden

his paper examines the geographic factors that are associated with the spread of COVID-19 during the first wave in Sweden. We focus particularly on the role of place-based factors versus factors associated with the spread or diffusion of COVID19 across places. Sweden is a useful case study to examine the interplay of these factors because it did not impose mandatory lockdowns and because there were essentially no regional differences in the pandemic policies or strategies during the first wave of COVID-19.

admin
July 28, 2021
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SAM: Technology and the Urban–Rural Divide in America

The dominant narrative in America today is that urban and rural face divergent futures. The belief that technology is driving urban prosperity and rural decline shapes this view.

This perceived divide is also reflected in popular assumptions about the COVID- 19 pandemic as web searches for homes in rural communities have spiked, ostensibly driven by individuals seeking to flee the dangers of density.

admin
August 4, 2020
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International Encyclopedia of Human Geography – Economic Geography

There is no more important time to study economic geography. As a field, economic geography encompasses two things. It is both the way economic activity is organized across space, and an academic discipline that develops theory, ideas, and research to explain why economic activity is organized the way it is. For most of human history, economic activity sprung up around natural resourcesd farms around fertile soil, trading activities around natural ports, harbors or nodes between cities, and later factories and industrial activity around natural resources like water power, coal, petroleum, or iron ore. But economic activity today faces few such
constraints.

admin
December 17, 2019
Files / Working Papers

Geography as strategy: the changing geography of corporate headquarters in post-industrial capitalism

This paper develops a theory of large corporate headquarters’ location in post-industrial capitalism. It posits that human capital has become the primary factor in the location decisions of large corporate headquarters. It argues that such operations will locate in skilled cities that are also larger and globally connected. These hypotheses are tested using data from the Fortune 500 between 1955 and 2017. Count models are estimated to test the relative importance of human capital, population size and airport connectivity, alongside taxation and other factors identified in the relevant literature. The findings are consistent with the hypotheses.

admin
November 18, 2019
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The Economist: Uncovering tomorrow’s innovation hotspots

Uncovering tomorrow’s innovation hotspots: The cities striving for emerging technology leadership is an Economist Intelligence Unit report, sponsored by Pictet, that explores where interest, innovation and commercial activity around emerging technologies are active and growing at scale. Its primary aim is to identify cities that are in a position to challenge, in the future, the leadership of the world’s largest innovation hubs, widely regarded to be Silicon Valley, New York and London.

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November 13, 2019
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Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Reports : Can Low-Wage Workers Find Better Jobs?

There is growing concern over rising economic inequality, the decline of the middle class, and a polarization of the U.S. workforce. This study authored by Richard Florida, Todd Gabe, and Jaison R. Abel, examines the extent to which low-wage workers in the United States transition to better jobs, and explores the factors associated with uch a move up the job ladder.

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November 15, 2018
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MPI : Winner-Take-All Cities

This chapter examines the phenomenon of “winner-take-all urbanism” and “winner
-take-all cities.” Large segments of the modern economy have been shown to conform to a “winner-take-all” pattern as superstar talent draws a disproportionate share of economic rewards.

admin
November 2, 2017
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MPI BUILDING 65 MILLION GOOD JOBS The Geography of Low-Paid Service Class Jobs and How to Begin to Upgrade Them

This report takes a deep dive into America’s Service Class. The
Service Class includes 65 million workers who toil in precarious,
low-skill, low-pay jobs in fields like Food Preparation and Service, Retail Trade, Personal Care, and Clerical and Administrative positions.
Our research outlines the dramatic growth of the Service Class,
documents the low wages paid to Service Class workers, and charts
the large share of women and minorities that make up Service
Class workers.

admin
September 5, 2017
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Martin Prosperity Institute: Job Growth in Canadian and U.S. Metros

This report examines job growth across Canada and the United States. It uses data from Emsi data for the period 2001–2016 for the 222 metros that had more than 100,000 jobs in 2016. This includes 203 U.S., 91 percent of the total, and 19 Canadian metros, 9 percent of them. We also look at job change for the more recent 2012–2016 post-economic crisis and recovery period. (Emsi compiles its labor market analytics from U.S. and Canadian government sources).

admin
August 2, 2017
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MPI : The Geography of the Global Super-Rich

Recent years have seen increasing apprehension over rising inequality and the growth of the so-called “1 percent.” For all the concern
expressed about the rise of the global super-rich, there is very little
empirical research related to them, especially regarding their location across the cities and metro areas. Our research uses detailed data from
Forbes on the more than 1,800 billionaires across the globe to
examine the location of the super-rich across the world’s cities and
metro areas.

admin
August 9, 2016
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Martin Prosperity Institute : Startup City Canada : The Geography of Venture Capital and Startup Activity in Canada

Startup City Canada examines venture capital activity in Canada, identifying its leading cities and metros and mapping its urban orientation in the county’s three largest venture capital hubs: Toronto, Vancouver,and Montréal. This report is part of a larger, ongoing research project tracking the urban geography of venture capital and start-up activity.

admin
November 19, 2015
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The Global Creativity Index 2015

This report presents the 2015 edition of the Global Creativity Index,
or GCI. The GCI is a broad-based measure for advanced economic
growth and sustainable prosperity based on the 3Ts of economic development
talent, technology, and tolerance. It rates and ranks 139 nations worldwide on each of these dimensions and on our overall measure of creativity and prosperity.

admin
October 15, 2015
Files / Working PapersUrban

NYU Furman Center : We Need a New National Urban Policy

Beyond the interventions that Sampson describes, we need an urban policy that is attuned to this new reality—and that can help to change it. What we need is a new growth model that is as ambitious and as far-reaching as our post-World War II commitment was to creating a middle class. We need to re-knit the safety net and ensure that everyone has access to good, family-supporting jobs that are the equivalents of my father’s factory job.

admin
July 16, 2015
CitiesCreative ClassFiles / Working PapersMartin Prosperity Institute

The Divided City : And the Shape of the New Metropolis

A new report released today by Richard Florida and the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, finds America’s cities and metro areas to be strikingly divided by class. The report, released to the City Lab Conference of Mayors and City Leaders in Los Angeles, maps the stark class divisions within 12 of America’s largest cities and metro areas. Americans, it finds, are not only separated by income and race, but by socio-economic class.

admin
September 29, 2014
Files / Working PapersRise of the Creative Class Features and Reviews

Economic Development Quarterly : The Creative Class and Economic Development

The Rise of the Creative Class, which was originally published in 2002, has generated widespread conversation and debate and has had a considerable impact on economic development policy and practice. This essay briefly recaps the key tenants of the creative class theory of economic development, discusses the key issues in the debate over it, and assesses its impacts on economic development policy.

admin
July 17, 2014
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Regional Studies : The Happiness of Cities

This research examines the factors
that shape the happiness of cities, whereas much of the existent literature has focused on the happiness of nations. It is argued that in
addition to income, which has been found to shape national-level happiness, human capital levels will play an important role in the
happiness of cities. Metropolitan-level data from the 2009 Gallup–Healthways Survey are used to examine the effects of human capital on city happiness, controlling for other factors. The findings suggest that human capital plays the central role in the happiness
of cities, outperforming income and every other variable.

admin
April 16, 2014
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Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society : The creative class, post-industrialism and the happiness of nations

Our research examines the role of post-industrial structures and values on happiness across the nations of the world. We argue that these structures and values shape happiness in ways
that go beyond the previously examined effects of income. Our analysis explores whether income has different effects on countries at different stages of economic development. Our
results indicate that post-industrial structures and values have a stronger effect on happiness in higher income countries, where the standard of living has surpassed a certain level. Income,
on the other hand, has a stronger impact on happiness in low-income countries.

admin
April 16, 2014
Files / Working Papers

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society : The Creative Class and the crisis

The economic crisis contributed to sharp increases in US unemployment rates for all three of the major socio-economic classes. Results from regression models using individual-level data from the 2006–2011 US Current Population Surveys indicate that members of the Creative Class had a lower probability of being unemployed over this period than individuals
in the Service and Working Classes and that the impact of having a creative occupation became more beneficial in the 2 years following the recession. These patterns, if they continue,
are suggestive of a structural change occurring in the US economy—one that favours knowledge-based creative activities.

admin
April 16, 2014
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Journal of Economic Geography : Geographies of scope: an empirical analysis of entertainment, 1970–2000

The geographic clustering of economic activity has long been understood in terms of economies of scale across space. This paper introduces the construct of geographies of scope, which we argue is driven by substantial, large-scale geographic concentrations of related skills, inputs and capabilities. We examine this through an empirical analysis of the entertainment industry across US metropolitan areas from 1970 to
2000.

admin
April 16, 2014
Files / Working Papers

China’s Development Disconnect

China is currently seeking to transform its economic structure from a traditional industrial to a more innovative, human-capital driven, and knowledge-based economy. Our research examines the effects of three key factors on Chinese regional development in an attempt to gauge to what degree China has transformed from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy, based on higher
levels of (1) technology and innovation, (2) human capital and knowledge/professional/creative
occupations, and (3) factors like tolerance, universities, and amenities which act on the flow of the first two. We employ structural equation models to gauge the effects of these factors on the economic performance of Chinese regions. Our research generates four key findings.

admin
April 16, 2014
Files / Working Papers

Industry and Innovation : Creative Jobs, Industries and Places

This special issue publishes some of the interesting work that is going on within the creative economy research field. This concept of the creative economy has been the focus of our own
research for more than a decade. The most fundamental level building block of the creative economy is, of course, creative individuals. Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class
(2002) illustrated that every single human being has creative potential, and discussed the economic value of such creative individuals for innovation in industry. At the industry level,
“creative industries” has been the terminology to describe industries where individual creativity is systematically harnessed to achieve high levels of innovation, namely, high-tech industries with a high R&D or programming component, as well as cultural industries such as
entertainment or design (Caves, 2000; Throsby, 2001; Hesmondhalgh, 2002).

admin
April 16, 2014
CitiesEmploymentFiles / Working Papers

Regional Studies : The Geography of Inequality: Difference and Determinants of Wage and Income Inequality across US Metros

This paper examines the geographic variation in wage inequality and income inequality across US metros. The findings indicate that the two are quite different. Wage inequality is closely associated with skills, human capital,technology and metro size, in line with the literature, but these factors are only weakly associated with income inequality. Furthermore, wage inequality explains only 15% of income inequality across metros. Income inequality is more closely associated
with unionization, race and poverty. No relationship is found between income inequality and average incomes and only a modest relationship between it and the percentage of high-income households.

admin
April 7, 2014
CitiesFiles / Working PapersTechonology

MPI : Startup City: The Urban Shift in Venture Capital and High Technology

High tech startups are taking an urban turn. 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.

admin
March 31, 2014
Files / Working Papers

Human Capital in Cities and Suburbs

This article written by Richard Florida,
Charlotta Mellander and Kevin Stolarick examines the effects of this intra‐metropolitan distribution on economic
performance. The findings indicate that this distribution matters significantly to US regional performance. Suburban human capital matters more than center city human capital.

admin
May 26, 2011
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The Globalization of Innovation and Entrepreneurial Talent: The Changing Context of Venture Capital Investment

In this paper Richard Florida, Robert Wuebker and Zoltan Acs examine recent patterns of venture capital investment which suggest that the venture capital industry is in the early stages of a profound transformation catalyzed in
part by the globalization of igh-impact entrepreneurship. This change in the allocation of early-stage venture investment has important implications for the financing of young firms, the speed of innovation and technological
transformation, and the locus of long-term economic growth.

admin
January 7, 2011
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Cities, Skills and Wages

This research examines the effect of skill
in cities on regional wages. In place of the extant literature’s focus on human
capital or knowledge-based or creative
occupations, we focus our analysis on actual skills.

admin
April 8, 2010
Files / Working Papers

Socioneconomic Structures and Happiness

Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander and Peter J. Rentfrow examine the role of post-industrial structures and values on happiness across the nations of the world. They argue that these structures and values shape happiness in ways that go beyond the previously examined effects of income.

admin
March 11, 2010
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Happy States of America

This report by Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander, and Peter J. Rentfrow examines results that suggest that residents of states with high levels of well-being were wealthier, better educated, more tolerant, and emotionally stable compared to residents of states with comparatively low levels of well-being. Analyses indicated that connections between well-being and class structure, diversity, and personality remained after controlled income.

admin
November 3, 2009