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Browsing Science Research & Publications by Department "Arts"

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    Creative Talent in Relation to the City: The Case of a Natural Resource-Based Centre (Calgary)
    (2010-11-22T23:04:49Z) Ryan, Camille D., Ben Li and Cooper H. Langford
    A large recent literature argues that cities’ capacity to attract and retain creative talent crucially supports innovation and economic health. Instead of understanding ‘creative’ talent contributions statistically through education, job classification, income, and economic growth, this paper qualitatively explores creative workers’ attitudes about the city in which they pursue a career. This paper reports on 28 factors of attraction and retention of creative talent in Calgary, a natural resource-based centre in Canada studied in the years 2006–2008. The data were drawn from interviewees’ responses to questions about attitudes toward the city as a place to work and about possible moves to alternative locations, in the context of a study of the social dynamics of innovation from the city perspective. The qualitative expressed preference methodology reveals the complexity of factors shaping individual preference for place, exposing a richness not accessible through regression analysis on statistical categories alone. Identification of 28 ‘embeddedness’ factors expressed in the interviews facilitates a grounded theory classification under seven main aspects of the socio and economic infrastructure that could be used to construct and test an indicator of the relation to the city. Given adequate economic opportunities, we find that several environmental factors, personal networks and professional networks were most attractive, while socio-cultural diversity was less emphasized. A multi-dimensional analysis could explain Calgary’s attraction of internal migration beyond growth predicted by population size and the characteristically dynamic growth of larger centers.