Measuring Cultural and Creative Activities in European Cities: Challenges and Practical Problems with Existing Indices

Abstract

For decades, the focus of cultural, social, and economic policies has been shifting to cities. Cities with the highest concentration of creative employment have demonstrated the greatest resilience in the post-2008 economic recovery. Although, over the last few years, there has been an explosion of cultural or creative related indices for cities, no single reference index is commonly accepted. The main thrust of this article is the provision of a systematic and practical framework for a common point of departure for future index developers. To this end, 38 of the most influential culture and creativity indices were reviewed. By adoption of the indicator-driven approach, 16 dimensions corresponding to aspects of culture and creativity were identified in the city context. These dimensions are presented in a novel taxonomy of 3 clusters that aims to distinguish indicators capturing core cultural and creative activities from those oriented on measuring cities’ organic background or socio-economic outcomes of the aforementioned activities. In addition, the main obstacles most commonly faced by index developers are described and grouped into 4 distinct conceptual challenges, namely (a) precision, (b) diversity, (c) comparability, and (d) spillover. Each challenge is discussed in detail, accompanied by a systematic approach to its solution.

Notes

¹ The terms ‘composite indicator’ and ‘index’ (indices – plural) are used interchangeably to refer to a multi-dimensional measure that is aggregated from individual variables, for which the term “indicator” is used.

² This list is not exhaustive. There are many more indices relating to culture and creativity, which are less well known, or still under development.

³ In an earlier presentation (authors’ self-identifying reference) 19 dimensions were identified using the indicator-driven approach and which were discussed in the context of the CCA by different indices. Having consulted stakeholders and academics working in the culture and creativity, it was decided that in three cases two dimensions were so closely related that they should have been merged. The following merging of dimensions were performed: “Social Capital & Engagement & Support” and “Openness, Tolerance & Diversity” which became “Social Capital: Openness, Tolerance, Engagement, Support & Diversity”; “Creative Industries Diversification” and “Creative Citizens Micro-productivity” which became “Inputs for the CCS”; “Globalization & Economy of Attention” and “Networks & Exchange” which became “Globalization & Networks & Exchange”.

⁴ This could be presented as an interactive option on the web-platform from which the standardized index is launched.

⁵ This approach is particularly suitable for major cities where boundaries often coincide with or span across NUTS 3 regions (according to Eurostat classification). Otherwise, such approximations should be used very carefully for small and medium-sized cities which are only part of the region of interest.