The Influence of District Visual Quality on Location Decisions of Creative Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Problem: A redevelopment aim of numerous Western world cities is to attract creative firms to formerly abandoned or neglected districts. While some studies propose that visual assets of neighborhoods may attract creative entrepreneurs to certain districts, few have explored how visual features are important for creative entrepreneurs and provided meaningful planning knowledge.

Purpose: This article examines the influence of district visual form as perceived by creative entrepreneurs on their location decisions. It suggests how this knowledge is usable for development of cultural production districts.

Methods: I conducted 63 interviews with creative entrepreneurs in three districts in The Netherlands: the Eastern Docklands in Amsterdam, the Lloyd Quarter in Rotterdam, and the Hortus Quarter in Groningen. These districts accommodate relatively more firms in creative industries than do other districts within the same cities, but they are visually disparate in terms of architecture and urban spaces.

Results and conclusions: This article demonstrates a significant relationship between district visual quality and the location behavior of creative entrepreneurs. Moreover, there is more than one visual model for cultural production districts. Urban design, architecture, waterfronts, and parks may have various forms, provided that they single out one place from other, mainstream places. The overall visual character of the district needs to be perceived as distinctive, whether deliberately designed as such or not. Because the visual quality of the district contributes to increased creative productivity, creative entrepreneurs use their relative freedom of location within cities to achieve quality of place at work.

Takeaway for practice: Cities that aim to attract creative entrepreneurs to certain districts should use strategies to achieve district visual quality. I draw on my findings to point at several planning strategies to inspire flexible, localized approaches to the development of visually distinctive cultural production districts. These strategies can be alternated and adjusted over time, according to a district's existing visual quality, availability of government resources, and the changing constraints and opportunities of a region's cultural production system.

Research support: Dissertation support from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Dissertation Fellowship from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge, MA, USA. The Netherlands Institute of City Innovation Studies (NICIS), The Hague, and the municipalities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Groningen cofinanced the fieldwork.

Keywords:

• district visual form
• urban design
• cultural production districts
• location decisions of creative entrepreneurs
• Dutch cities

Acknowledgments

The author is very grateful to four anonymous reviewers who were very generous in their comments and advice. The author thanks the following for their useful suggestions: Armando Carbonell, Carl Steinitz, Erik Stam, Marietta Haffner, Veronique Schutjens, Jan Jacob Trip, Anne Risselada, Jos Olsthoorn, Jos Gadet, Koos van Zanen, Ewald Engelen, and Robert Kloosterman; and the research assistants who helped in conducting the interviews: Michael Paviˇciˇc, Nadine Hendriks, Joni Hayen, Jos Olsthoorn, and Marieke Kuijer.

She holds an M.Sc. in architecture. Her interdisciplinary Ph.D. research in economic geography and urban planning focuses on spatial qualities of cultural production districts.

Notes

1. Where influence of district visual quality on location decisions of creative entrepreneurs is concerned, I adhere to Gerring's (2005) discussion of causality in the social sciences: By studying the influence of variable X on Y, the aim is to obtain insight into which X (e.g., district visual quality) enhances the chances of effecting Y (e.g., location decisions of creative entrepreneurs).

2. I searched for districts that GIS maps showed as quantitative exceptions by containing relatively many firms in creative industries compared to other districts within the same cities. Our GIS maps of the cities Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Groningen, where the three research districts are located, were made using LISA databases that list all firm establishments subscribed at the Chamber of Commerce and that belonged to one of the following subsectors in creative industries: publishers, interior designers, architectural services, advertising and graphic designers, photography, fashion designers, movie and video production, radio/television program production, performing arts, news agents and journalists, libraries, museums, and nature protection. These GIS maps only show creative firms that fitted a more detailed list of subcategories within these subsectors, based on five-digit codes in order to include particularly the type of firms most involved in producing semiotic and symbolic content. The GIS maps show firms of all sizes. Yet, the average size of creative firms in the three research districts was 2.8 workers.

3. The composition of the respondent selection corresponds to the structure of all firms in the creative industries in The Netherlands. The owner-manager is the only worker in about two thirds of all creative firms, and 95% of all creative firms have fewer than 10 employees (Stam, De Jong, & Marlet, 2008). In 2009, Dutch creative firms had on average three workers including the entrepreneurs (Municipality of Amsterdam, 2010a).