The Economics of Talent: Human Capital, Precarity and the Creative Economy (SpringerBriefs in Regional Science) 331995122X, 9783319951225

Table of contents :
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Authors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
Abstract
1.1 Why Talent? Why Now?
1.2 Book Outline
References
2 Defining Talent: Between Human Capital and the Creative Economy
Abstract
2.1 Introduction: Why the Economics of “Talent”?
2.1.1 Talent and Human Capital: Same or Different?
2.2 Talent and the Creative Economy
2.2.1 Creative Industries and Creative Occupations
2.2.2 The Creative Class and Creative Graduates
2.3 Talent in the Future: More Precarity?
References
3 Positioning Talent: History, Cities and the Growing Importance of Talent
Abstract
3.1 Introduction
3.2 A Historical Look at Cities: Three Shifts in the Drivers of Economic Growth
3.3 Talent Feeds Economic Prosperity, Innovation and Productivity
3.4 Talent Enhances Competition and Collaboration
3.5 Talent Drives Consumption and Prosperity
3.6 Talent Supports Centres of Knowledge and Innovation
3.7 Attracting Talent Back to the City
3.8 The Transformation of Cities into “Entertainment Machines”
3.9 The Importance of Authenticity
3.10 Cities, Crisis and Change
References
4 Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities
Abstract
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Cost of “Superstar” Cities
4.3 Disparities of Wages but also of Well-Being
4.4 Big City—Big Income Inequality
4.5 Bigger and More Successful Means More Segregation
4.6 Big Successful City Equals More Gentrification
4.7 Beyond the City
4.8 Closing the Gaps in Our Cities
References
5 Raising Talent: Higher Education and Uneven Career Outcomes
Abstract
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Studying Creative Graduates: Definitions and Articulations
5.3 Creative Labour Demand, Supply and Mismatch: Where Creative Graduates Work
5.4 Long- and Short-Term Perspectives on Creative Graduates’ Employment
5.5 Key Dynamics Across Different Creative Careers and Beyond the Creative Economy
5.6 The Value of Creative Education Beyond the Creative Industries
5.7 Policy Challenges and Conclusions
References
6 Exposing Talent: Precarity and Moments of Crisis
Abstract
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Understanding Creative Talent: Settings, Downfalls and Moments of Crisis
6.3 Covid-19: Leaving Talent Exposed in the UK
6.4 Conclusion: Talent at Risk?
References
7 Empowering Talent: Campaigning and Activism for Work and Cities
Abstract
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Creative Talent: Campaigning for Space and Rights to the City
7.3 Creative Talent Contexting and Responding to Precarity
7.4 Unpaid Work, Internships and the Value of Knowledge and Skills
7.5 Creative Workers’ Response in Moment of Crisis
7.6 Conclusion
References
8 Conclusions
Abstract
8.1 Supporting Talent in Its Development
8.2 Talent in Cities and Beyond: Future Creative Mobilities
8.3 Collective and Care-Full Support to Talent
8.4 Policy Implications: Talent-Centred Policy-Making
References

Citation preview

SPRINGER BRIEFS IN REGIONAL SCIENCE

Roberta Comunian Lauren England Alessandra Faggian Charlotta Mellander

The Economics of Talent Human Capital, Precarity and the Creative Economy

SpringerBriefs in Regional Science Series Editors Henk Folmer, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands Mark Partridge, Ohio State University, Columbus, USA Daniel P. McMillen, University of Illinois, Urbana, USA Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, London School of Economics, London, UK Henry W. C. Yeung, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

SpringerBriefs present concise summaries of cutting-edge research and practical applications across a wide spectrum of fields. Featuring compact, authored volumes of 50 to 125 pages, the series covers a range of content from professional to academic. SpringerBriefs in Regional Science showcase emerging theory, empirical research and practical application, lecture notes and reviews in spatial and regional science from a global author community.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10096

Roberta Comunian Lauren England Alessandra Faggian Charlotta Mellander •

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The Economics of Talent Human Capital, Precarity and the Creative Economy

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Roberta Comunian King’s College London London, UK

Lauren England King’s College London London, UK

Alessandra Faggian Department of Social Sciences Gran Sasso Science Institute L’Aquila, Italy

Charlotta Mellander Jönköping International Business School Jönköping University Jönköping, Sweden

ISSN 2192-0427 ISSN 2192-0435 (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Regional Science ISBN 978-3-319-95122-5 ISBN 978-3-319-95124-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

The idea of this book was born from heated discussion across disciplinary boundaries and academic concerns. The authors all bring their different perspective to present a rich and articulated account of “talent” as it became a focus of lot of academic and policy attention since the early 2000s. Participating in these debates across economics, regional development, economic geography, cultural studies and higher education studies, the authors explore in the book the need to bring together insights from multiple disciplines and different theoretical approaches. The book is meant to be an accessible read for students and researcher trying to come to terms with the question of why, despite the importance placed on talent— both as a potential innate ability or as human capital—so many people still struggle to make a living within the creative economy. The book aims to bring together recent and current research on the unusual and multifaceted economic dynamics that surrounds “talent” when defined as the complex overlap between human capital and creative work. The structure of the book reflects this need to explore talent from a range of perspectives and address these varied dynamics. The Introduction (Chap. 1) specifically addresses the question of why it is important to focus on talent and how the global financial crisis as well as the ongoing global health crisis (Covid-19) has exposed new and pre-existing challenges for talent and creative economy development. In Defining Talent (Chap. 2), we address the challenging question of defining what talent means and explore the pre-existing theories and models, while presenting the specific perspective adopted by the book. In Positioning Talent (Chap. 3), we considering the historical development of the importance of talent for our economies and specifically for cities, knowledge and economic growth. In Challenging Talent (Chap. 4), we explore the way concentration of talent in cities has also created inequality and how the global financial crisis and Covid-19 further challenge its future development.

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Preface

In Raising Talent (Chap. 5) we specifically explore the early stages of talent development for the creative economy, the role of higher education and the first stage of creative career development. In Questioning Talent (Chap. 6), we focus specifically on the impact that crisis has had on the creative and cultural sectors in the UK, after the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008 and more recently the Covid-19 global pandemic. In Empowering Talent (Chap. 7), we explore emerging and growing patterns of resistance, activism and grassroot developments that propose new trajectories for a more equitable and sustainable future of talent. Finally, in the Conclusions (Chap. 8), we reflect on our common learning that have emerged in this book and future agendas to support the development of talent as a more sustainable and inclusive research and policy objective. London, UK London, UK L’Aquila, Italy Jönköping, Sweden

Roberta Comunian Lauren England Alessandra Faggian Charlotta Mellander

Acknowledgments

We would like to first acknowledge the help and support offered by researchers and collaborators that have helped us develop some of the ideas behind the book, in particular Sarah Jewell (University of Reading) and Scott Brook (University of Melbourne) in relation to the data and ideas proposed in Chap. 5 and Tamsyn Dent (King’s College London) for her input on Chap. 7. We would also acknowledge the inputs of Dr. Jessica Tanghetti (University of Brescia) and Dr. Zafeirenia Brokalaki (University of Leicester) through collaborative work on the cases of Milan and Athens. Dr. Comunian would also like to acknowledge the support and connected reflections developed with colleagues at King’s College London (Dr. Nick Wilson, Dr. Jonathan Gross, Dr. Tamsyn Dent and Dr. Bridget Conor) as part of the H2020 funded project developing inclusive and sustainable creative economies (DISCE).

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Contents

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2 Defining Talent: Between Human Capital and the Creative Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction: Why the Economics of “Talent”? . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Talent and Human Capital: Same or Different? 2.2 Talent and the Creative Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Creative Industries and Creative Occupations . . 2.2.2 The Creative Class and Creative Graduates . . . 2.3 Talent in the Future: More Precarity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Why Talent? Why Now? . 1.2 Book Outline . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Positioning Talent: History, Cities and the Growing Importance of Talent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 A Historical Look at Cities: Three Shifts in the Drivers of Economic Growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Talent Feeds Economic Prosperity, Innovation and Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Talent Enhances Competition and Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Talent Drives Consumption and Prosperity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Talent Supports Centres of Knowledge and Innovation . . . . . 3.7 Attracting Talent Back to the City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 The Transformation of Cities into “Entertainment Machines” 3.9 The Importance of Authenticity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.10 Cities, Crisis and Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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4 Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Cost of “Superstar” Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Disparities of Wages but also of Well-Being . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Big City—Big Income Inequality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Bigger and More Successful Means More Segregation . . . . 4.6 Big Successful City Equals More Gentrification . . . . . . . . . 4.7 Beyond the City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.8 Closing the Gaps in Our Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5 Raising Talent: Higher Education and Uneven Career Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Studying Creative Graduates: Definitions and Articulations . . . 5.3 Creative Labour Demand, Supply and Mismatch: Where Creative Graduates Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Long- and Short-Term Perspectives on Creative Graduates’ Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Key Dynamics Across Different Creative Careers and Beyond the Creative Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 The Value of Creative Education Beyond the Creative Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Policy Challenges and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Exposing Talent: Precarity and Moments of Crisis . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Understanding Creative Talent: Settings, Downfalls and Moments of Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Covid-19: Leaving Talent Exposed in the UK . . . . 6.4 Conclusion: Talent at Risk? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7 Empowering Talent: Campaigning and Activism for Work and Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Creative Talent: Campaigning for Space and Rights to the City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 Creative Talent Contexting and Responding to Precarity . 7.4 Unpaid Work, Internships and the Value of Knowledge and Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Creative Workers’ Response in Moment of Crisis . . . . . . 7.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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About the Authors

Roberta Comunian is a reader in Creative Economy at the Department for Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London (UK). She is interested in cultural policy, cultural and creative work and creative higher education. She has published extensively on the role of creative and cultural industries in local development. She is also internationally recognised for her work on creative graduates developed in collaboration with Dr. Jewell and Dr. Faggian. She has previously led and coordinated two AHRC international research networks, one on the role of “Higher Education in the Creative Economy” (2012–2014) and one on “Understanding and supporting creative economies in Africa” (2017–2020). She is currently involved in the H2020 EU funded project DISCE: Developing inclusive and sustainable creative economies. Lauren England is a lecturer in Creative Economies at the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London (UK). She is interested in creative enterprise and education with a focus on craft and sustainable development in both Global North and Global South contexts. She has published research on craft skills evolution in post-industrial regions, craft entrepreneurship and precarious work in the creative economy. Her current work includes researching the impact of Covid-19 on creative economies and the work of socially engaged arts organisations in relation to policymaking. Alessandra Faggian is a professor of Applied Economics, the director of Social Sciences and the vice provost for Research at the Gran Sasso Science Institute, L’Aquila, Italy. She is a past president of the North American Regional Science Council (NARSC), the current co-editor of Journal of Regional Science and the previous editor of Papers in Regional Science. Her research interests lie in the field of regional economics. Her publications cover a wide range of topics including migration, human capital, labour markets, creativity and local innovation and growth. She has co-authored over 90 academic publications. She is the 2007

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About the Authors

recipient of the Moss Madden Memorial Medal by the Regional Science Association International: Irish and British section (RSAIBIS), the 2015 recipient of the Geoffrey Hewings Award by the North American Regional Council (NARSC) and the 2020 recipient of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) Prize. Charlotta Mellander is a professor of Economics at Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping University. Her research is focused on the location patterns of creative individuals and firms, as well as the interrelationship between these actors, and how this in the end shapes regional development. Her publication list includes very diverse set of topics, from creative industries, happiness, community satisfaction, light-emission-based estimations of gross regional product globally, to alternative ways of measuring skills. She has been a publicly active researcher, with more than 500 invited, external speeches, both nationally and internationally, including organisations such as the EU and the UN, as well as companies such as IBM. She held a visiting faculty position at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 2009–2016, where she worked together with Professor Richard Florida, the scholar behind the creative class theories.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 3.1

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 8.1

Creative graduates and the creative economy. Adapted from Comunian et al. (2010) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . America’s share of the labour force (Historical Occupational data from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics, various years). Adapted from Florida (2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of Scopus documents connecting precarity and creative work over time (2002–2020) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Key components of talent-centred policy-making . . . . . . . . . . .

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List of Tables

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Brief roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Values for mean, lowest and highest levels of economic segregation across US metropolitan areas (data from Florida and Mellander 2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of graduates entering creative occupations and non-creative occupations across sub-discipline cohort 2004/2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graduates in creative and non-creative occupations, by creative and non-creative, after 6 months and 3½ years (percentages) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Employment circumstances for creative and non-creative graduates, after 6 months and 3½ years (percentages) . . . . . . Mean (and median) salary across creative disciplines in creative and non-creative occupations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sector distribution and creative job type by subject studied . .

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Chapter 1

Introduction

Abstract This introductory chapter presents the motivations that have driven the authors to write the book. It highlights the importance of the objective of bringing together our current understandings and research around talent. It also contextualises the need for the book in relation to the contemporary developments that have followed the Covid-19 global pandemic. This has made visible structural issues and inequalities in relation to how talent is often undervalued in our societies. The limitations and geographical focus of the book are addressed. The chapter also offers an outline of the book chapters and the structure of the contribution.

1.1

Why Talent? Why Now?

This brief Introduction aims to answer two main questions: why is a book on the economics of talent needed and why is it needed now? Talent, with its multiple, connected and contradictory definitions, has been on everyone’s mind in the last twenty years. It has caught the attention of our society: from academic professors, researchers, policy-makers, to urban property developers and financiers, to activists, workers and community groups. In academia alone, talent, in its broader understanding, has been discussed by economists (Towse 2006, 2001), regional economists (Faggian 2005) economic geographers (Florida et al. 2008), urban scholars (Krätke 2004) as well as cultural studies scholars (Banks 2017) and cultural policy scholars (Oakley et al. 2014).1 Overall, talent is a multi-faceted concept, used by many researchers to capture different groups of individuals engaging with intellectual and creative work. In this book, we do not aim to provide one univocal definition of talent but instead reflect on its articulation across existing frameworks and key concepts like creative class, creative graduates

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The names here are only illustrative as there are too many esteemed colleagues involved that we are not able to cite here. This list is still not comprehensive as psychology, international development, sociology, law, policy studies and others also have engaged with the topic. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_1

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Introduction

and creative economy. We highlight the need to think about concurring definitions and how they relate to each other. There are a range of reasons for this increased attention towards talent. Firstly, the fuzzy nature (Markusen 2003) of the concept allows all of the above to define a specific reason why talent is key to their work, whether in reference to the economic, social or cultural development of our society. Secondly, the feel-good nature of the concept (Pratt 2009; Arnoldus 2004), that allows everyone to both see talent as the distinctive magic-dust that makes us who we are in so many different, original, post-modern unique ways. Who does not want to be considered part of “talent” or see “talent” as the solution to our future development? Finally, as in the last two decades, there has been a global financial crisis (2008) and a global health pandemic (2020), talent seems to hold the key to new potential solutions to our problems; or at least it allows us in many ways to hope for the future (Gross 2020; Novy and Colomb 2013; Alacovska 2019; Wright 2018). So why a book on the economics of talent? As suggested above, while the fuzziness and feel-good nature of the concept has allowed a flourishing of research, policies and activism, it has also allowed for confusion, instrumentalisation and denial to take over. This brings us all to a point where it is hard to use the word talent without a clear understanding of what each of us it talking about and what agendas might be involved in the way it is used and sometimes instrumentalised. It has also created an inability of academic research to create a constructive and critical dialogue around the importance of talent within our society and economies. One of the important contributions of this book is to try and clarify and recognise how different understandings have come into place and how they might contribute to future scenarios in academic research and policy. However, beyond creating an opportunity to clarify and facilitate academic cross-disciplinary dialogue, the book also aims to encourage a more rounded understanding of talent that takes into consideration the economic and developmental opportunities it offers to city and regions. Alongside this, it recognises that it might have very diverse impacts and shortcomings when the perspective of individual workers, graduates or citizens is taken into consideration. In many ways, the book takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride, from the very hopeful and positive headlines offered by the creative class theory (Florida 2002) and the development of the creative industries (DCMS 2001; Smith 1998) and creative economy globally (UNDP/UNCTAD 2010), to a tipping point in the early 2000s. What comes next is a much more critical perspective— which also follows the global financial crisis of 2008—that exposes rising inequalities (Donegan and Lowe 2008; McCann 2007), a lack of diversity and equality (Ruth Eikhof 2017; O’Brien et al. 2017; McLean 2014; Gill 2014), unrewarded careers (Comunian et al. 2010), urban exploitation (Chatterton 2000; Comunian and Mould 2014) and takes us towards a downward spiral. Despite the economic crisis and long-term recovery, more accounts have emerged about the importance of the creative economy not only as an economic opportunity but as a potential space for socio and cultural development and grassroots action (Brokalaki and Comunian 2021; Robinson and Aronica 2015; Sasaki 2010; Charter and Keiller 2014). In the 2010s, we learnt to allow a binary understanding of talent to coexist,

1.1 Why Talent? Why Now?

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accepting that headlines of economic growth (Fahmi and Koster 2017) regeneration and expansion can coexist with precarity (De Peuter 2011), struggle (Mattoni 2008) and antagonist visions of the creative city (Landau 2019). We come to answer to the question of why this book is needed specifically now. As we write, the Covid-19 pandemic is still tragically unfolding across the world. The pandemic has been identified by many for its impact not only on cities’ health systems, social divisions and economies but also for its devastating impact on many sectors of the creative economy (Gross et al. 2021; Comunian and England 2020; de Jesus 2020). It has made visible many of the structural issues and inequalities in the way talent is organised, paid, contracted and geographically distributed that are not sustainable in the long term (Eikhof 2020). These inequalities are being further exacerbated by Covid-19 and the pandemic might have disproportionate impacts on the employment and health and well-being of talent from different socio-economic backgrounds (Comunian and England 2020). In order to address this, it is imperative to reassess the current economic order and to actively build greater societal and economic inclusivity. As calls are made to “build back better” from the Coronavirus crisis and “level up” societies, it will be important for policy-makers globally to address both the pre-existing inequalities within and beyond their cities as well as the new disparities that have emerged. Therefore, we think now is a critical moment to take stock and develop a better understanding of talent and its contradictions as they can no longer simply be ignored and swept under the carpet. This is hopefully a building block on which future researchers can build as we collectively reflect on what post-pandemic futures may be possible and how talent might be empowered to shape them. While we hope this book does justice to our effort to address the challenging questions presented above and recognise the importance of bringing together the knowledge and research of many colleagues and friends that have contributed to the field, we are aware that our voices come themselves from a very selective and often privileged geography. We acknowledge that in this book, our main focus is the often neoliberal political cities of the Europe and North America. The decision to focus on this context is based on the author’s research and working experience rather than an assumption about which context would be more meaningful to analyse and reflect on. In fact, we hope this book will open up a debate and that future researchers can continue to come together to answer similar questions in other global contexts (Lee and Lim 2014; Comunian et al. 2021; Molho et al. 2020).

1.2

Book Outline

Following this introduction, the book is structured across six main themes and chapters. In Chap. 2, Defining “Talent”: Between Labour Markets, Human Capital and the Creative Economy, we bring together the extensive range of literature that connects with the notion of talent. There is not one univocal definition. Talent has become the

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centre of attention of many disciplines (from economics, to geography and cultural studies); therefore, in order to fully understand and define it, it is important to bring together different perspectives and research that connects with the term. Chapter 3, Positioning Talent: History, Cities and the Growing Importance of Talent, provides the historical context for the interest in talent as drivers of economic growth and their relationship with urban environments. Here, we introduce research that shaped our initial understanding of the roles that geography and spatial dependence play in the living choices and dynamics of talent and how those factors influence urban productivity and growth. We present these theories of city and talent development as responding to the phenomena observed at the time—the rise of knowledge and creativity as economic drivers at the start of the millennium—and the forces behind them. We conclude with a reflection on what we know so far about the impact of Covid-19 on cities and how this connects with the theories presented on the urban accumulation and retention of talent. Chapter 4, Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities, explores the challenges that the age of talent presents for individuals, firms and cities. It highlights the costs of developing the “superstar” cities discussed in the last chapter and how they accumulate disproportionate levels of wealth, economic output and innovation. It then discusses gaps between the “haves” and the “have nots” in relation to wages but also well-being and addresses how big cities exacerbate income inequalities and segregation based on race and class. Throughout the chapter, we acknowledge the cyclical nature of these disparities and how they have been exacerbated by periods of crisis including the global financial crisis and the recent Covid-19 pandemic. The discussion then turns to drivers of gentrification and the influence of rising housing costs and the cultural tastes of aggressively entrepreneurial newcomers that flock to big cities. The chapter concludes with reflection on the need to address rising socio-economic and spatial inequalities in cities and beyond that have emerged through mass urbanisation and the age of talent in the pursuit of economic growth. It argues that closing the gaps is vital for all regions and that the “winners” of the future will be those places that best understand both the unique opportunities and challenges of the age of talent. Chapter 5, Raising Talent: Higher Education and Uneven Career Outcomes, considers the connection between the two main understandings of the concept of talent, on the one side as human capital, on the other as linked to creative occupations. In order to explore this connection, the chapter focuses on “creative graduates”, graduates who studied a creative subject-based degree and their career outcomes. In particular, we consider the career perspectives of these graduates in relation to both employment patterns and economic rewards (salary) as well as how they connect with entering (or not) a creative occupation. The chapter considers how even in the very early stages of their career, these graduates experience forms of precarity and uneven outcomes which build on some of the inequalities described in Chap. 4 and connect with in-depth discussion of precarity and forms of resistance addressed in Chaps. 6 and 7, respectively. The chapter also offers reflections on the policy implications of this data especially for high education institutions and cities. While based on UK data, we believe the discussion is also relevant to other international contexts.

1.2 Book Outline

5

Chapter 6, Exposing Talent: Precarity and Moments of Crisis, provides a more detailed analysis of the working conditions of talent. In the literature, it is widely acknowledged that precarity is a structural condition of workers in the creative industries. However, in the chapter, we explore further how this precarity becomes even more evident and problematic in moments of crisis, with specific reference to the UK. In particular, we consider how the global financial crisis of 2008 resulted in an erosion of contracts and social security for workers in the sector. We also discuss how Covid-19 has given new visibility to the precarity of the sector. We make a distinction between what are the immediate visible issues and the more invisible ones that can potentially have more long-term impacts. The chapter questions in what ways Covid-19 represents a moment of crisis for the sector or has simply further exposed the unsustainable price of creative talent. Chapter 7, Empowering Talent: Campaigning and Activism for Work and Cities, considers the ways in which talent has responded to the challenges provided by urban agglomeration and their working conditions. It looks specifically at campaigning, protests and activisms as a key phenomenon that on one side tries to increase academic and policy attention towards the challenges faced by talent and on the other tries to engage with the potential for new—more sustainable and inclusive—trajectories of development. In the chapter, activism is considered both in relation to the rights of talent to the city—against gentrification and exclusionary developments—and in relation to working conditions, unpaid labour and contractual issues experienced by talent. Finally, moments of crisis—in relation to the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic—are also considered for their criticality in both affecting the livelihoods of creative talent and triggering activism, resistance and collective responses. Finally, the conclusions offer an opportunity to bring together the key findings and learnings emerging from the chapters. It reflects on potential future trajectories both for academic research and future policy interventions aiming to open up more inclusive and sustainable practices for talent development.

References Alacovska A (2019) ‘Keep hoping, keep going’: towards a hopeful sociology of creative work. Sociol Rev 67(5):1118–1136 Arnoldus M (2004) A Discovery of creative talent in the margins of urban development. Built Environ 30(3):204–211 Banks M (2017) Creative justice: cultural industries, work and inequality. Rowman and Littlefield International, London, p 200 Brokalaki Z, Comunian R (2021) Beyond the hype: arts and the city in economic crisis, City, https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2021.1935766 Charter M, Keiller S (2014) Grassroots innovation and the circular economy. The Centre for Sustainable Design, University for the Creative Arts, London Chatterton P (2000) Will the real creative city please stand up? City 4(3):390–397 Comunian R, England L (2020) Creative and cultural work without filters: Covid-19 and exposed precarity in the creative economy. Cult Trends 29(2):112–128

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Comunian R, Mould O (2014) The weakest link: creative industries, flagship cultural projects and regeneration. City, Culture and Society 5(2):65–74 Comunian R, Faggian A, Li QC (2010) Unrewarded careers in the creative class: the strange case of bohemian graduates. Pap Reg Sci 89(2):389–410 Comunian R, Hracs BJ, England L (2021) Higher education and policy for creative economies in Africa: developing creative economies. Routledge, London DCMS (2001) Creative industries mapping document. Department for Culture, Media and Sport, London de Jesus DSV (2020) Necropolitics and necrocapitalism: the impact of COVID-19 on Brazilian creative economy. Mod Econ 11(6):1121–1140 De Peuter G (2011) Creative economy and labor precarity: a contested convergence. J Commun Inq 35(4):417–425 Donegan M, Lowe N (2008) Inequality in the creative city: is there still a place for “old-fashioned” institutions? Econ Dev Q 22:46–62 Eikhof DR (2020) COVID-19, inclusion and workforce diversity in the cultural economy: what now, what next? Cultural Trends 29(3):234–250 Faggian A (2005) Human capital, migration and local labour markets: the role of the higher education system in Great Britain. PhD Thesis, University of Reading, Reading Fahmi FZ, Koster S (2017) Creative industries and regional productivity growth in the developing economy: evidence from Indonesia. Growth Chang 48(4):805–830 Florida R (2002) The rise of the creative class. Basic Books, New York Florida R, Mellander C, Stolarick K (2008) Inside the black box of regional development—human capital, the creative class and tolerance. J Econ Geogr 8(5):615–649 Gill R (2014) Unspeakable inequalities: post feminism, entrepreneurial subjectivity, and the repudiation of sexism among cultural workers. Soc Polit Int Stud Gend State Soc 21:509–528 Gross J (2020) Holding together loss and hope: reflections on the need for art in times of crisis. J Psychosoc Stud 13(2):209–217 Gross J, Dent T, Comunian R (2021) Covid-19 and the creative city: lessons from the UK. In: Doucet B, Melik Rv, Filion P (eds) Global reflections on Covid-19 and cities: urban inequalities in the age of pandemic. Policy Press, Bristol, pp. 179–188 Krätke S (2004) City of talents? Berlin’s regional economy, socio-spatian fabric and ‘worst practice’ urban governance. Int J Urban Reg Res 28(3):511–529 Landau F (2019) Agonistic articulations in the ‘creative’ city: on new actors and activism in Berlin’s cultural politics. Routledge Lee H, Lim L (2014) Cultural policies in East Asia: dynamics between the state, arts and creative industries. Springer Markusen A (2003) Fuzzy concepts, scanty evidence, policy distance: the case for rigour and policy relevance in critical regional studies. Reg Stud 37(6–7):701–717 Mattoni A (2008) Serpica Naro and the others. The ‘Media sociali’ experience in Italian struggles against precarity. Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 5(2), pp 1–24 McCann EJ (2007) Inequality and politics in the creative city-region: questions of livability and state strategy. Int J Urban Reg Res 31(1):188–196 McLean H (2014) Digging into the creative city: a feminist critique. Antipode 46(3):669–690 Molho J, Levitt P, Dines N et al (2020) Cultural policies in cities of the ‘global South’: a multi-scalar approach. Int J Cult Policy 26(6):711–721 Novy J, Colomb C (2013) Struggling for the right to the (creative) city in Berlin and Hamburg: new urban social movements, new ‘spaces of hope’? Int J Urban Reg Res 37(5):1816–1838 O’Brien D, Allen K, Friedman S et al (2017) Producing and consuming inequality: a cultural sociology of the cultural industries. Cult Sociol 11:271–282 Oakley K, Hesmondhalgh D, Lee D et al (2014) The national trust for talent? NESTA and new labour’s cultural policy. British Politics 9(3):297–317 Pratt AC (2009) Urban regeneration: from the arts ‘feel good’ factor to the cultural economy: a case study of Hoxton, London. Urban Stud 46(5–6):1041–1061

References

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Robinson K, Aronica L (2015) Creative schools: the grassroots revolution that’s transforming education. Penguin books, London Ruth Eikhof D (2017) Analysing decisions on diversity and opportunity in the cultural and creative industries: a new framework. Organization 24(3):289–307 Sasaki M (2010) Urban regeneration through cultural creativity and social inclusion: rethinking creative city theory through a Japanese case study. Cities 27:S3–S9 Smith C (1998) Creative britain. Faber & Faber, London Towse R (2001) Creativity, incentive and reward: an economic analysis of copyright and culture in the information age. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham Towse R (2006) Human capital and artists’ labour markets. In: Ginsburgh VA, Throsby D (eds) Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Elsevier, pp 865–894 UNDP/UNCTAD (2010) Creative economy report 2010. UNCTAD, Geneva Wright D (2018) Hopeful work and the creative economy. In: Martin L, Wilson N (eds) The palgrave handbook of creativity at work, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp 311–325

Chapter 2

Defining Talent: Between Human Capital and the Creative Economy

Abstract This chapter offers an overview of the current research connected to the concept of talent as an umbrella term that has been used in a range of contexts and disciplines. It specifically explores connections between talent and a range of other concepts and understandings. Firstly, it presents the connection between talent and human capital. Then it reflects on its relationship with the concept of the creative economy, both from its industrial and occupation dimensions (creative industries and creative occupations) and from the perspective of its broader potential human resources (creative class and creative graduates). It also clarifies how the different concepts are used across the book chapters, from a more general view to a more specific focus on creative talent (talent within the creative economy). Finally, it touches upon the possible repercussions of Covid-19 on talent.

2.1

Introduction: Why the Economics of “Talent”?

That we are now all living in a “knowledge-based society” (Lane 1966; Stehr 1994) is a very well-established fact. However, knowledge has been defined by different disciplines in very different ways. The term “human capital” was coined in the early 1960s by economists (Becker 1993; Schultz 1961) to encompass the knowledge embodied in individuals. However, geographers have questioned the validity of this definition, pointing out that a better proxy for knowledge is creativity (Florida 2002). The main criticism made by geographers to economists was that, over the years, the concept of human capital became almost undistinguishable from the proxy used to measure it (formal years of education), and that the latter was insufficient to fully account for the complexity of embodied individual knowledge (Markusen 2004). A better way to assess knowledge was therefore to look at the tasks performed by individuals in the labour market, their occupations. Moreover, while knowledge measured by formal years of education is a static concept, a “stock” variable which does not change over time, knowledge measured by occupations becomes a more dynamic concept, a “flow” variable, whereby individuals can be considered creative in one period but not creative in another according to the occupation they have at that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_2

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point in time. Other elements have also been proposed as key to individual knowledge, such as entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship stresses the ability of individuals in identifying and seeking profit opportunities and taking risks and has been linked to economic growth (Acs and Armington 2006; Audretsch and Thurik 2001). In the vast sea of different ways of defining knowledge, why do we need the concept of “talent”? Why did we choose this term and what do we mean by it? The rationale for using the word “talent” in this book was that we needed a concept that could connect across disciplines and address some of the controversies between them. Talent is anything that helps societies progress towards new and innovative paths. “Talented” people are the ones everyone seeks because they can contribute positively to the economy and the well-being of societies. Talent is composed by all the dimensions mentioned above (and more) and talented people combine education with creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and so on, pushing the frontier of what societies can do. What we mean by “talent”, therefore, is a multi-dimensional set of individual abilities. In this sense, “talent” is not so far from how the initial concept of human capital was intended, but the confusion between the initial concept and what became its measure (formal years of education) was problematic. With this aim in mind, the rest of the chapter is organised as follows: we first review how the concepts of talent and human capital have been viewed in the literature so far and their connections. The next two sections look at the concept of the creative economy and its most recent developments, both from a demand side (creative industries and creative occupations in Sect. 2.2.1) and a supply side (creative class and creative graduates in Sect. 2.2.2). We conclude this section with a table clarifying how the linkages between the different concepts have been analysed in the remaining chapters of the book. Finally, we briefly touch upon the possible implications of Covid-19 on the precarity of creative workers, also in relation to the “uneven” geography of creative occupations, highlighting the need to tackle this issue seriously in the near future.

2.1.1

Talent and Human Capital: Same or Different?

In order to clarify exactly what we mean by talent and why we selected to use this term in our book, we need to start by looking, briefly, at how the concepts of talent and human capital have traditionally been used in the literature to define knowledge. The concept of human capital is generally associated with the work by Gary Becker who in 1964 published a book entitled “Human Capital” that provided the first unifying framework on the subject. However, the term was first formally introduced by Theodore Schultz in 1961 in an article in the American Economic Review. Although the term human capital was original, the concept and basic idea behind this new label was by no means new; Adam Smith, back in 1776, had

2.1 Introduction: Why the Economics of “Talent”?

11

outlined the idea that people, acquiring talents through education, study or apprenticeship, become akin to expensive productive machines (Faggian 2005). Two concepts are often associated with human capital: productivity and investment. In fact, the term human capital, at least in its original 1960s specification (Becker 1993), referred to the knowledge, skills and competencies embodied in individuals that increase their productivity. Human capital is knowledge with a specific “aim”, i.e. making workers more productive. As such, investment in human capital is fundamental for both individuals and society as a whole. For individuals, future earnings are positively correlated with the stock of human capital accumulated. Although individuals have to accept lower earnings while investing in human capital (for instance through education or apprenticeship), they do so in anticipation of higher returns when they are older. This means that their lifetime earning profile tends to be steeper than people who decide not to invest and instead enter the labour market immediately. Moreover, individuals with a high level of human capital, generally, benefit from access not only to more remunerative jobs, but also more stimulating careers. From a social point of view, human capital fosters economic growth and is one component of a country's overall competitiveness. Furthermore, human capital produces positive external effects (also known as externalities), which improve the overall quality of life. It has been demonstrated that, in an environment with a high level of human capital, crime rates decrease and the productivity of physical capital and other workers increases too thanks to “peer effects” such as those identified for students (Zimmerman 2003). The existence of positive externalities for society forms the basis for governments subsidising education. One key characteristic of human capital is that, once acquired, it cannot be alienated from its owner. Although, as with physical capital, human capital may depreciate in time, becoming partly obsolete. One of the primary difficulties in dealing with human capital is identifying good indicators to measure it. In practice, only formal education, simply quantified in terms of years of schooling, is traditionally used as a proxy for the human capital acquired and this sets limits to the validity of the empirical results. Some critics have also observed how in reality it is impossible to separate the human capital investment from the consumption component of it. Individuals can decide to enter education or training not only for the potential of higher future earnings but also partly for the simple enjoyment of being students or trainees. Moreover, the 1960s definition has been extended in the 1990s (Laroche et al. 1999) to include elements such as innate abilities, physical fitness and healthiness, which are crucial for an individual’s success in acquiring knowledge and skills. Although this extension to include natural abilities seems innocuous, it is not, as it implies a big change in the way human capital has been conceptualised for decades. The strict link between human capital and investment was suggestive of the fact that it was conceived as an acquired ability rather than an innate one. In other words, if the concept of human capital was intrinsic the idea was that nurturing mattered more than nature. On the opposite side, the concept of “talent” was linked more to nature than nurture, although nature also needs some nurturing to

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fully develop. In fact, a standard dictionary definition claims that talent is a “natural aptitude or skill” (Lexico 2020). This distinction is important because, in the 2000s, following work by Florida (2002) and the rise in popularity of the concept of “talent”, many authors used the words talent and human capital interchangeably and the borders between the two concepts became blurred. In his contribution “The Economic Geography of Talent”, Florida himself talks about “the distribution of talent, or human capital” (2003, p. 743) being an important factor in economic geography, using the two terms as substitutes. Our view is that the two terms are, in fact, not identical. Human capital has a more functional nature, i.e. it is restrictive to the abilities that make individuals more productive; for us, talent includes all the abilities of people, whether they increase productivity or not. Talent is therefore a more comprehensive and socially inclusive term encompassing all the aspects of an individual’s knowledge, which also goes beyond the traditional dictionary-based definition which stresses only natural skills. In this respect, it is similar to the extended definition of human capital proposed in 1999 by Laroche et al. who define it as: “the aggregation of the innate abilities and the knowledge and skills that individuals acquire and develop throughout their lifetime. This definition is broader than what is typically found in the literature as it includes innate abilities. Innate abilities represent an individual's intrinsic potential to acquire skills. They can be defined as all physical, intellectual, and psychological capacities that individuals possess at their time of birth. They are received as gifts by individuals without any action or choice of their own, and they differ greatly across individuals because of heredity, parental decisions, and purely random factors. Acquired skills represent the actualization of this potential mostly through individual efforts involving a cost. These skills are acquired over one's lifetime through intergenerational transfers of knowledge, personal contacts, work experience, on-the-job-training, education and socialization” (p. 89).

However, although Laroche et al.’s definition of human capital is very inclusive, they still seem to restrict it to what is useful in economic terms. Our definition goes beyond this view; there might be individuals with high level of talent who are not “productive” in the traditional sense (measured in monetary terms), but help societal well-being nonetheless. Having clarified what we mean by talent, it has to be recognised that the term “talent” itself became popular in the 2000s especially thanks to the contribution by Florida (2002) on the creative class. The next two sections will be therefore devoted to the description of the interconnection between talent and the creative economy both from a demand (creative industries and occupations) and a supply (creative class and individuals) side. This is particularly important because, as Comunian et al. (2010) have well explained, there are some discrepancies between the demand and the supply side of a “creative economy” with the creative class being a much wider concept than the creative industries.

2.2 Talent and the Creative Economy

2.2

13

Talent and the Creative Economy

While the term “creative economy” became very popular in the 2000s, some clarity is still required about its true meaning. First of all, when we talk about an economic system, there are two sides to be looked at: demand and supply. The demand side refers to the “needs” employers have of a certain type of workers and skills. The supply side refers to the individuals able to fill these needs. So, in a creative economy, creative industries and occupations will, ideally, have to be matched with creative individuals. What seems to be a straightforward equation, however, turned out to be very complex, because the definitions of “creative industries” and “creative individuals” (creative class) did not match, as we will see in the next two sections.

2.2.1

Creative Industries and Creative Occupations

In the UK, but also in the rest of Europe and Australia, the main focus of the academic research on the creative economy has been the so-called creative industries. These were defined by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport as “those industries that have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property” (DCMS 2001, p. 5). They include advertising, architecture, the art and antiques market, crafts, design, designer fashion, film, interactive leisure software, music, the performing arts, publishing, software and television and radio. This definition of “creative industries” is much more restrictive than the one for creative class and it includes mostly the “cultural” sectors, with no mention of other sectors where creative occupations might be quite common, even if in a more supportive role. The issue of including creative occupations in non-creative industries is fundamental to better defining the demand side of the creative economy and it has been tackled in recent contributions by Brook et al. (2020) and Comunian et al. (2011). It is also the approach taken in this book, where creative industries are augmented by creative occupations in the empirical modelling. Moreover, by combining creative industries and creative occupations, it is possible to create a classification of the type of occupation individuals find: specialised (creative industry and occupation), supportive (non-creative industry but creative occupation) or embedded (creative industry but not-creative occupation). This “Trident Model”, first identified by Higgs et al. (2008), will be used later in the book in relation to creative graduates (Chap. 5).

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Defining Talent: Between Human Capital and the Creative Economy

The Creative Class and Creative Graduates

While in Europe the focus was on the demand side, in North America, almost simultaneously, the focus was on the supply side, i.e. creative workers. In his 2004 book “Cities and the Creative Class”, Richard Florida argues that the success and development of cities depends on them being able to attract the “creative class” and that this hinges upon three main fundamental ingredients, labelled as the “3T’s”: Technology, Tolerance and Talent. In other words, to be successful, a city has to firstly be innovative, invest in R&D and produce new technologies. Second, it has to be culturally open and welcoming of diversity. Third, it has to be able to attract highly talented and skilled people. To measure the “talent” dimension, two indexes are proposed: the talent index and the Bohemian index. Interestingly, the talent index boils down to the percentage of the population owning a bachelor’s degree or above (which is the standard measure of the traditional human capital variable). However, this index is supplemented, and complemented, by the Bohemian index, which measures the concentration of artists, writers, performers and similar professionals, positioning them at the core of economic development and no longer at its margins. This extension to the type of people considered “talented” goes back to the original work by Florida a couple of years before. In his first book “The Rise of the Creative Class” (2002), Florida argues that the traditional concept of human capital, and the use of years of schooling as proxy, does not appropriately capture what is important for regional growth for at least two reasons. First, traditional educational attainment only measures “potential” skills of people, but not how (and how much) they actually use them. Second, it underestimates the role of creative people without formal education. In order to solve these two issues, he proposes an alternative measure based on the set of occupations that make up the “creative class” and shows that this measure outperforms the conventional human capital measure in explaining regional growth, as it accounts for utilised skills rather than just potential, but maybe unused talent.1 In Florida’s own words, at the heart of the creative class, there are “people in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and/or new creative content”, but also “the creative professionals in business and finance, law, healthcare and related fields. These people engage in complex problem solving that involves a great deal of independent judgement and requires high levels of education or human capital” (2002, p. 8). It is obvious that the definitions of “creative class” and “creative industries and occupations” do not overlap, the former being too wide and the latter a bit too narrow. However, they both have in common the attention towards the economic value added derived from knowledge and creativity, although looking at it from different angles, one focusing on firms and jobs, the other on individuals. An attempt to reconcile the creative class framework with creative industries and occupations was made by Comunian et al. (2010) and Faggian et al. (2013) with

2.2 Talent and the Creative Economy

15

their work on “creative graduates” to study the matching between demand and supply in the creative economy (Fig. 2.1). Their work aims, on one side, to expand the traditional (quite restrictive) view on the creative industries, while, simultaneously, restricting the focus to just a small part of the creative class, i.e. graduates who obtained a degree in a “creative” subject (creative arts, performing arts, design, mass communications, multi-media, software design and engineering, music recording and technology, architecture and landscape design). Their case is interesting because they combine creativity with a formal investment in human capital, via tertiary education. Moreover, the availability of very detailed microdata on their individual, university, course and job characteristics allows a demonstration of the great variability among them and their labour market outcomes. Not all members of the “creative class” are rewarded equally in the labour market; the majority of them are actually penalised, compared to non-creative workers, not only in terms of monetary salaries, but also in general working conditions (temporary work, multiple jobs, lower satisfaction). This result is also confirmed by other studies, both quantitative and qualitative (Oakley et al. 2008; Ross 2003; McRobbie 1998), and the precarity of creative work is now a well-known phenomenon (Comunian and England 2020). This, of course, opens up the debate on why “talent”, in the form of a combination of both creativity and human capital, is not adequately rewarded and whether this depends mainly on the

Fig. 2.1 Creative graduates and the creative economy. Adapted from Comunian et al. (2010)

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Defining Talent: Between Human Capital and the Creative Economy

choices of the individuals themselves (their values and free spirit) or on the poor functioning of the creative labour market (with the positive externalities created for society not adequately recognised and remunerated) where individuals might have to self-sacrifice to enter these careers. This has also implications for the level of discrimination or inequalities experienced by people trying to enter the sector (Comunian et al. 2017) or its diversity in general (O’Brien et al. 2017). In the remainder of the book, the overarching idea of “talent” will be looked at from different points of view. Table 2.1 summarises the focus of each chapter, the concepts they refer too and the underlying interconnected dimensions analysed.

2.3

Talent in the Future: More Precarity?

The term precarity has also been contested: on one side, it is generally connected to modernity (Neilson and Rossiter 2005) and neoliberal markets conditions (Dörre 2006). On the other, it connects with social movements and activism (Da Costa 2016; Banks 2010). As with the concepts of talent, creative class and creative and cultural workers, precarious workers also include different groups from the two extreme ends of the labour market (Waite 2009): at one end, low-paid, unskilled labourers (such as cleaners, careers, delivery drivers) in the gig economy (De Stefano 2015); at the other, highly skilled workers (DCMS 2016) in the creative industries. It is the latter group that we address in this book as “talent” in creative labour markets (Chaps. 6 and 7). Here, we connect with four key dimensions of precarious work (Rodgers and Rodgers 1989): uncertainty in the time of employment (short-term vs. long-term; control (or lack of) over work alongside increasingly fragmented and individualised work; limited protection through regulatory frameworks (i.e. laws and directives); and salaries that do not actually provide a living wage. We will argue that precarity becomes even more evident and problematic in moments of crisis—specifically the global financial crisis of 2008 and the Covid-19 pandemic which began in 2020—but also how talent has engaged in activism and campaigning or resistance both against precarious working conditions and for rights to the city. Table 2.1 Brief roadmap Talent

Chapter

Key concept

Connected/Composing concepts

Talent in the knowledge economy (creative class)

Chapters 3 and 4

Creative class

Talent in the creative economy (creative talent)

Chapter 5

Creative graduates

Chapters 6 and 7

Creative economy

Knowledge economy Creative economy (CCI and CCW) Human capital Creative economy (CCI and CCW) Creative and cultural workers Creative industries

2.3 Talent in the Future: More Precarity?

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Most of the theories on talent, human capital and the creative economy were formulated in a period of globalisation and high international mobility. In such a setting, the geography of talent was very “dynamic” as both highly educated and highly creative individuals were found to be very mobile (Faggian and McCann 2009; Hansen and Niedomysl 2009; Faggian et al. 2014; Corcoran and Faggian 2017). Moreover, as we unpack in the next chapter, cities were big attractors of these individuals, both for the larger availability of creative jobs there and for “peer effects” (Moretti 2004). However, in recent years, we have observed a trend towards de-globalisation around the world. Brexit is a clear example, but voting patterns in other countries also went in the same direction. Looking at the effect of these changes on talent mobility will be of paramount importance, because we could observe a new geography of talent. The same is true for the recent Covid-19 crisis. While having an overwhelmingly negative impact on the economy as a whole, certain sectors have been hit the hardest. The effects of the pandemic on the creative economy were particularly devastating for two reasons: 1. The entertainment and cultural sectors, involving close proximity among individuals, were among the first to be completely shut down to contain the spread of the virus; 2. More central locations where creative industries and occupations tend to located, such as big cities, were the most affected (Ascani et al. 2020; Nathan and Overman 2020) because of higher rates of viral transmission connected to population size, the configuration and use of urban architecture and infrastructure such as agglomeration, air quality and transport networks (Lai et al. 2020; Sharifi and Khavarian-Garmsir 2020). In a world where the new mantra is no longer “agglomeration”, but rather “social distancing”, the creative economy is bound to suffer (Gross et al. 2021), unless it re-invents itself. In this sense, the well-documented precarity already experienced by creative individuals (Comunian and England 2020) might get worse. This book will briefly touch upon the role that crises (both financial and health) might have on talent, although this remains a topic to be further explored in the future, once the rules of this “new” world become clearer. Note 1. The question of measuring talent is obviously a much more complex one, as talent is a “latent” variable. Structural equations with latent variables (Van Kesteren 2021; Laverde et al. 2019) may prove very fruitful in the future to improve our knowledge on this.

References Acs ZJ, Armington C (2006) Entrepreneurship, geography, and American economic growth. Cambridge University Press, New York Ascani A, Faggian A, Montresor S (2020) The geography of COVID-19 and the structure of local economies: the case of Italy. J Reg Sci. https://doi.org/10.1111/jors.12510

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Audretsch DB, Thurik R (2001) Linking entrepreneurship to growth. OECD Growth Working Paper 27, OECD, Paris Banks MJ (2010) The picket line online: creative labor, digital activism, and the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Pop Commun 8:20–33 Becker G (1993) Human capital: a theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education, 3rd edn. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Brook S, Comunian R, Jewell S, Young Lee J (2020) More than a day job a fair job: music graduate employment in education. Music Education Research 22(5):541–554 https://doi.org/ 10.1080/14613808.2020.1840539 Comunian R, England L (2020) Creative and cultural work without filters: Covid-19 and exposed precarity in the creative economy. Cultural Trends 29(2):112–128 https://doi.org/10.1080/ 09548963.2020.1770577 Comunian R, Faggian A, Li QC (2010) Unrewarded careers in the creative class: the strange case of Bohemian graduates. Pap Reg Sci 89(2):389–410 Comunian R, Faggian A, Jewell S (2011) Winning and losing in the creative industries: an analysis of creative graduates’ career opportunities across creative disciplines. Cultural Trends 20(3–4): 291–308 Comunian R, Faggian A, Jewell S (2017) Graduates migration in the UK: an exploration of gender dynamics and employment patterns. In Corcoran J, Faggian A (eds) Graduate migration and regional development: an international perspective. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 220–238 Corcoran J, Faggian A (eds) (2017) Graduate migration and regional development: an international perspective. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham UK Da Costa D (2016) Politicizing creative economy: activism and a hunger called theater. University of Illinois Press, Illinois DCMS (2001) Creative Industries Mapping Document, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, London DCMS (2016) Creative industries: focus on employment. Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), London De Stefano V (2015) The rise of the just-in-time workforce: on-demand work, crowdwork, and labor protection in the gig-economy. Comp Lab l Pol’y J 37(3):461–471 Dörre K (2006) Precarity–The cause and effects of insecure employment. Goethe Institut–Labour Research, London Faggian A (2005) Human capital, migration and local labour markets: the role of the higher education system in Great Britain, PhD Thesis, University of Reading, Reading Faggian A, McCann P (2009) Universities, agglomerations and graduate human capital mobility. Tijdschr Econ Soc Geogr 100:210–223 Faggian A, Comunian R, Jewell S, Kelly U (2013) Bohemian graduates in the UK: disciplines and location determinants of creative careers. Reg Stud 47(2):183–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00343404.2012.665990 Faggian A, Comunian C, Li QC (2014) Interregional migration of human creative capital: the strange case of “Bohemian graduates.” Geoforum 55:33–42 Florida R (2002) The rise of the creative class: and how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. Perseus Book Group, New York Florida R (2003) The economic geography of talent. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 92(4):743–755. https:// doi.org/10.1111/1467-8306.00314 Gross J, Dent T, Comunian R. (2021) Covid-19 and The Creative City: Lessons from the UK. In Doucet B, van Melik R, Filion P, (eds), Global Reflections on Covid-19 and Cities: Urban Inequalities in the Age of Pandemic. Policy Press, Bristol, pp.179–188 Hansen HK, Niedomysl T (2009) Migration of the creative class: evidence from Sweden. J Econ Geogr 9(2):191–206 Higgs P, Cunningham S, Bakhshi H (2008) Beyond the creative industries: mapping the creative economy in the United Kingdom. NESTA, London Lai KY, Webster C, Kumari S, Sarkar C (2020) The nature of cities and the Covid-19 pandemic. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 46:27–31

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Lane RE (1966) The decline of politics and ideology in a knowledgeable society. Am Sociol Rev 5(31):649–662 Laroche M, Mérette M, Ruggeri GC (1999) On the concept and dimensions of human capital in a knowledge-based economy context. Policy/Analyse de Politiques, 25(1):87–100 Laverde H, Correa JC, Jaffe K, Caicedo MI (2019) Are average years of education losing predictive power for economic growth? An alternative measure through structural equations modeling. PLoS ONE 14(3):1–21 Lexico (2020) Talent. In Lexico.com. Retrieved January 1, 2020, from https://www.lexico.com/ definition/talent Markusen A (2004) Targeting occupations in regional and community economic development. J Am Plann Assoc 70(3):253–268 McRobbie A (1998) British fashion design: Rag trade or image industry? Routledge, London Moretti E (2004), Human capital externalities in cities. In: Henderson JV, Thisse JF (eds) Handbook of regional and urban economics, volume 4, Elsevier, 2243–2291 Nathan M, Overman H (2020) Will coronavirus cause a big city exodus? Environ Plann B: Urban Anal City Sci 47(9):1537–1542 Neilson B, Rossiter N (2005) From precarity to precariousness and back again: labour, life and unstable networks. Fibreculture 5:1–19 O’Brien D, Allen K, Friedman S et al (2017) Producing and consuming inequality: a cultural sociology of the cultural industries. Cult Sociol 11:271–282 Oakley K, Sperry B, Pratt AC (2008) The art of innovation: How fine arts graduates contribute to innovation. NESTA, London Rodgers G, Rodgers J (1989) Precarious jobs in labour market regulation: the growth of atypical employment in Western Europe. International Labour Organisation, Geneva Ross A (2003) No collar: the humane workplace and its hidden costs. Basic Books, New York Schultz T (1961) Investment in human capital. Am Econ Rev 51(1):1–17 Sharifi A, Khavarian-Garmsir AR (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on cities and major lessons for urban planning, design, and management. Sci Tot Environ 749:142391, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142391 Stehr N (1994) Knowledge Societies. Sage, London Van Kesteren E (2021) Structural equations with latent variables: computational solutions for modern data problems. PhD Thesis, University of Utrecht, Utrecht Waite L (2009) A place and space for a critical geography of precarity? Geogr Compass 3: 412–433 Zimmerman DJ (2003) Peer effects in academic outcomes: evidence from a natural experiment. Rev Econ Stat 85(1):9–23

Chapter 3

Positioning Talent: History, Cities and the Growing Importance of Talent

Abstract This chapter offers an initial historical context for the interest in talent as drivers of economic growth and their relationship with urban environments. It is important to position the emergence and growth of academic research and policy interest on talent both geographically and historically. Here, we summarise some of the research that shaped our initial understanding of the roles that geography and spatial dependence play in the location choices of talent and how those factors influence urban productivity and growth over time. In the chapter, we consider why cities have become the engine of wealth generation and why and how the presence of talent increases productivity and the role that universities, knowledge institutions and other amenities play in talent attraction and retention locally. We conclude by reflecting on what happens when the city/talent powerhouse has to face moment of crisis, such as in the case of the global financial crisis of 2008 and the recent Covid-19 pandemic which began in 2020.

3.1

Introduction

Cities have existed since the dawn of recorded history—in fact, the decision to live together in dense conglomerations is one of civilisation’s defining features. But for all of the outsized impact that cities have had on the world’s culture and commerce, until recently only a small minority of people actually lived in them. Two hundred years ago, the urban share of the global population amounted to about three per cent. By 1900, after a century of industrialisation, it had risen to roughly 15%; by 1950, it had approximately doubled to about 30% or one billion people. Today, more than four billion people live in cities, that is, more than half (55%) of the global population (UN 2018). It has been predicted that by 2050 there will be 43 major urban centres globally (a.k.a. megacities) and that over two-thirds of the population will be living in urban areas (Acuto 2020). In this chapter, we reflect on the historical context for the interest in talent as drivers of economic growth and their relationship with urban environments, summarising some of the research that shaped our initial understanding of the roles that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_3

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geography and spatial dependence play in the living choices and dynamics of talent and how those factors influence urban productivity and growth. Here, we explore questions such as why cities generate wealth, and why and how the presence of talent—understood from a human capital and creative class perspective (Florida 2002)—increases productivity and the role that universities, knowledge institutions and other amenities play in talent attraction. Throughout this discussion, we seek to understand what cities do to magnetise talent, focusing on theories around cities and talent reflecting the forces transforming economies, societies, politics and culture at the start of the millennium. In many ways, these studies highlight the positive trajectories and opportunities provided by the rise of knowledge and creativity as economic drivers. While we later discuss their limitations and present critique of associated gentrification and urban economic and social inequalities, the studies presented here were nevertheless responding to the phenomena observed at the time and the forces behind them. More recently, this has been recognised by those behind the original research (Florida 2017). While the research presented here reflects economic and urban environments predating both the global financial crisis of 2008 and more recent Covid-19 pandemic, we also consider the immediate impacts of the crisis on talent in cities and cities reliant on talent. While both the GFC and Covid-19 have had a significant and potentially long-lasting impact on cities and the talent within them, there is confidence that this is not “the end” for big cities (Couclelis 2020) and that agglomeration economies (such as entertainment, culture and leisure) will resume their urban prominence (Florida et al. 2021). It is therefore critical that we have a better understanding of urban economies in the age of talent prior to these moments of crisis in order to reflect on what the future post-pandemic cities may look like.

3.2

A Historical Look at Cities: Three Shifts in the Drivers of Economic Growth

Cities have always been drivers of economic growth, though the sources of their economic power have changed over time, reflecting the evolution of wealth generation, technology and the need for human capital. Most ancient cities were trading centres. The largest and most influential, such as Babylon, Cairo, Athens and Rome, were located at the intersections of major trade routes. These provided models for the tribal people of Europe as commercial centres such as Paris, Florence, Venice and Bruges, and in northern Europe, Lübeck, Hamburg, Köln and Visby arose beside natural harbours, at the intersections of rivers and at important crossroads between about 800 and 1200 AD. Though they began as trade nodes, a vast amount of research shows that these trading cities grew and flourished to the extent that they were able to attract diverse populations of people who provided support services—not just for merchants, but for religious and government officials. The cities that maintained their importance

3.2 A Historical Look at Cities: Three Shifts …

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over time were homes and arenas for deep knowledge and competence. They were the home of the most brilliant and talented minds of their time, including royal and religious administration, finance, banking, the production of handcrafts, the provision of household services and, eventually, knowledge production and culture. With the advent of each new “technology”, the city evolved to accommodate it (Andersson 1985; McClelland 1967). Historically, knowledge and creative cities have had many fundamental features in common. First, their populations experienced an imbalance between needs and resources; this impelled their most resourceful citizens to combine forces and collaborate on innovative solutions. The search for new ideas was also driven by structural instability, in which inhabitants felt genuine insecurity about the future of certain knowledge and competence fields, driving them to find new and better ways of doing things. Most importantly, creative cities attracted people from a wide range of cultures, knowledge backgrounds, experiences and skills. As such, they were veritable Petri dishes for the combination and recombination of ideas and technologies (Andersson 1985). Starting in the mid-eighteenth century, the Industrial Revolution caused a major shift in the economic power of cities. With the development of steam engines and the switch to the division of labour (Adam Smith’s famous pin factory) (Smith and Skinner 1991), cities became manufacturing centres. Paris and London grew especially rapidly and became established as Europe’s leading metropolitan regions. Great Britain’s extensive manufacturing and trade capabilities—established through the mobilisation and exploitation of both domestic and colonised resources, including labour—made it the richest nation in the world. To a large extent, the economic power of cities during the Industrial Revolution still depended on their geography, just as it did with trade, but what provided the greatest advantage was proximity to the raw materials that were used in factory production. In 1890, Marshall formalised the notion of “urban agglomeration economies”, arguing that early industries clustered in cities largely because of the advantages they realised from the diminished costs of transportation and to a much lesser degree from knowledge spillovers, locally traded inputs and concentrations of specialised skills (Marshall 1890). What mattered most was reducing the costs of getting raw goods to the factory and finished goods to the market. Manufacturing firms thus sought to identify where the natural resources (the production inputs) were located and where the marketplaces were. They would then place their factories more or less on a straight line between those two nodes to make both trips as short and subsequently as inexpensive as possible. Early industrialists quickly realised that urban densities enabled the sharing of indivisible assets like roads, railroads, ports and long-standing marketplaces. As a result, cities grew fastest in the regions where manufacturing industries found it most advantageous to locate. Their choices reshaped the economic geography that had dominated for decades, as cities like Manchester, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Essen (and the larger regions they were, respectively, embedded in—Northern England; the Great Lakes region; and the Ruhr Valley) became the prime engines of growth in England, the USA and Europe (Krugman 1991b). Since the majority of

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production was standardised using machines, there was no need for any kind of education or specialist knowledge to find work in a factory. The promise of a steady job and income drew millions of families out of the countryside and into cities, where they could make far better wages than they could on farms. There is a dark side to commercial and industrial development during this period. In the UK, this built on the profitability of colonial slavery during the eighteenth century (Williams 1944) and growth during the Victorian “age of great cities” capitalised on trade with slave-owning states in the American South and the wider Americas (Williams 1994; Sherwood 2007). For example, Manchester’s “Cottonopolis”, and the wider regional economy of Lancashire, was built on slave-produced cotton (Sherwood 2007). Inikori (2020, p. 150) also draws out critical connections between Atlantic slavery and the rise of the Atlantic economy, the growth of Western European economies, specifically the British Industrial Revolution, and the subsequent exploitation of new technologies to disseminate a hierarchical capitalist economic system to the rest of the world. We therefore acknowledge that the economic success of many Global North cities has often come at the expense of other nations. To the extent that labour was considered as a factor in regional economies, it was as a cost to minimise. The demand for unskilled factory workers was so strong in the early days of the Industrial Revolution that even children and young women were recruited onto shop floors, as their wages could be lower than men’s. Child labour laws and the rise of unions put a stop to that by the early twentieth century, but one of the unanticipated consequences of World War II was an increase in the number of women working in factories in the USA and Western Europe; women had replaced male workers when they went off to war. When the war was over, many of them stayed in their jobs (Shank 1988; Smith and Ward 1985). Following the Great Depression and the end of World War II, the leading cities of Western Europe were in disarray. However, as they rebuilt in the late 1940s and 1950s a new era of economic prosperity (and a second major shift in the economic structure of cities) took hold. As more households were able to afford services, the service sector of both European and American economies took off. Place was still a determinant of economic success, although no longer based on natural resources and climate but access to people, a factor that ensured service firms had enough customers to survive. In Britain, a service labour shortage, in transport and health services, for example, was addressed by the invitation of Commonwealth citizens to rebuild the British economy. Over 500,000 Commonwealth citizens—now known as the “Windrush generation”—eventually settled in of Britain, largely in urban areas, between 1948 and 1971. The third major shift in the economic power of cities began in the 1970s; this one would completely change the paradigm of urban success. While cities had experienced major influxes people taking up unskilled jobs during the Industrial Revolution and post-World War II era, in the 1970s they began to attract a different class, the highly educated talent—the “best and the brightest”, and they primarily moved towards areas where other skilled people were already clustering (Berry and Glaeser 2005).

3.2 A Historical Look at Cities: Three Shifts …

25

Machlup was one of the first economists to recognise that knowledge was becoming an economic resource, the beginning of the “knowledge economy”. In 1962, he estimated that knowledge accounted for as much as 29% of US gross domestic product (GDP) (Machlup 1962). This gave rise to a whole new stream of the literature about the emerging knowledge economy. In 1976, Bell argued that a new post-industrial society was dawning, predicting it would give rise to both a new technological elite and an urban focus around service-based and information industries (Bell 1976). Drucker’s work from the 1990s argued that the new post-industrial society was having a major impact on the modern business corporation (Peter 1993). Managers, he said, had to rethink their roles now that talent rather than raw materials had become the firm’s main assets. It was no longer enough simply to control workers; what was required was to bring out the best in their employees. Building on this, Florida introduced his thesis of the “creative class”—workers who are paid to think (Florida 2002). Until 1970, only around 15% of the population had knowledge jobs, but that share has more than doubled over the past three decades, giving rise to a whole new occupational class structure in which scientists, managers, administrators and engineers play major roles, and where creativity, knowledge and culture are key urban assets (Andersson 1985). Florida (2014) estimates that more than 30% of the labour force is part of the creative class (Fig. 3.1), and that they earn more than 50% of total wages. The data presented below reflects the trajectories of four occupational classes: service class—more standardised services (often poorly paid);

CreaƟve Class

Service Class

Working Class

Fishing Farming

70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10%

2015

2013

2010

2009

2007

2008

2005

2006

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1991

1990

1980

1970

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1950

1940

1930

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1910

1900

0%

Fig. 3.1 America’s share of the labour force (Historical Occupational data from U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics, various years). Adapted from Florida (2017)

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working class—more physical types of occupations; fishing/farming—specifically but also other types of resource-based jobs; and creative class—workers paid to think, which includes a subset of members of the “super-creative core” working in cultural and creative industries who are the focus of our later discussions on talent. Florida (2002) suggests that the ability to attract and retain the creative class now is the primary factor that determines the success of cities. The places that are best able to attract such talent are most often the biggest cities, which means that “size matters” when it comes to urban prosperity. Modern businesses, especially in the knowledge sector, often decide to locate in one city over another based on the shares of highly educated and innovative individuals that are living in them. This is in a sense a reversal of the old industrial era formula in which resource and transportation considerations determined the locations of firms and workers followed. In the following sections, we present the many advantages and benefits that successful cities gain by catering to talent.

3.3

Talent Feeds Economic Prosperity, Innovation and Productivity

The first benefit that accrues to cities that have concentrations of educated, creative people is a thicker concentration of jobs and higher rates of regional economic growth stemming from innovative products and production processes. At least 50 years ago, researchers noted the role of human capital in fostering regional development (Ullman 1958). The rationale was that human capital-dense cities are more productive because skilled workers become more productive when they locate around other skilled people. In general, a worker’s productivity increases an average of 2.8% with each additional year of education. However, if an individual with lower education moves to a place with many highly skilled workers, he or she also becomes more productive in this new regional context, simply by being exposed to their co-workers’ knowledge. This also stands for educated workers (Rauch 1993; Segal 1976; Sveikauskas 1975). Why is productivity important to a city? Because of the link between productivity and wages, which drive prosperity. A basic fundamental in economics states that a person’s wage is a function of skill, education and hours worked per week, and that it increases as people become more productive (Mincer 1974). Wages reflect workers’ marginal productivity (the amount of extra productivity that the person is expected to bring to the firm when they are hired). Productivity is consequently more or less directly related to the average wage and profit levels in a region. However, in more productive regions firms will make larger profits and higher wages will be paid. Wage levels and income per capita are also higher in regions with larger and denser populations, especially in sectors that are knowledge dependent.

3.3 Talent Feeds Economic Prosperity, Innovation and Productivity

27

Higher productivity also appears to be a benefit of urban size; the more people there are in a place, the more productive they are (Rosenthal and Strange 2003). Cities have also been shown to scale in a super-linear manner; for every doubling of city size, the people who live in them are (on average) 15% more productive, 15% more innovative and 15% wealthier (Bettencourt 2013; Bettencourt et al. 2007). In short, it is no longer nation states that create the highest economic value, but the large urban regions that are located within them. However, the competition for talent is now global. Florida et al. (2020) identify that today a relatively small number of global cities accumulate a disproportionate share of talent and other economic assets, which in turn generates a greater proportion of innovation, wealth and economic output relative to their population size. They identify a “winner-take-all” phenomena in which 49 “alpha cities” (Beaverstock et al. 2017) (based on their share of economic activity, innovation and wealth) “account for 15% of global economic output, roughly half of global venture capital investment, and 57% of super-rich wealth, while housing just 7% of the world’s population” (Florida et al. 2020, p. 15) Furthermore, the three leading global cities have an economic output which is “roughly three times greater than their share of global population” (ibid, p. 14). This has clear consequences for the kind of opportunities that talent will find in different geographical contexts and for discussion both on urban inequality, career opportunities and risk of precarity as we discuss later in the book. The New Economic Geography recognised that different factors have a greater influence on agricultural, industrial and knowledge-based economies. As such, it distinguished between first-nature geographies, in which natural resources and climate are the most important factors, and second-nature geographies, which prioritise concentrations of people in space. Krugman and his associates (1991a,1991b, 1998) analysed the geography of economic activities based on two competing forces: agglomeration or clustering (the centripetal force) and dispersion (the centrifugal force). They found that economic activity is unevenly distributed in space and that the spatial system is constantly affected by changes in the technological and socio-economic environment. They explain centripetal forces mostly as the result of connections between consumers and industries, and less often in reference to knowledge externalities and information spillovers. Meanwhile, centrifugal forces are explained as a result of rising land prices, higher wage levels, congestion and increased competition, among other factors. Related studies (Fujita and Thisse 1996) divided human activities into production and creation activities, bringing the knowledge factor into the New Economic Geography. In this context, production activities are more routinised and have a higher degree of standardisation, while creative activities are built more on interactions between human beings. Places that facilitate personal communication within groups of individuals who share the same interests are thus crucial for creativity; the larger the groups, the more significant the scale effects from these “communication externalities” (Fujita and Thisse 2002). One major reason why the New Economic Geography remains important in this context (besides the fact that it is a highly influential theory in regional economics) is because of the shift from first-nature to second-nature geography. While the

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first-nature economy is fixed and exogenously determined (by climate, natural resources, etc.), the second-nature economy (where people locate) can be affected by human-controlled factors. This means that policy-makers have some tools at their disposal with which they can endogenously affect economic development.

3.4

Talent Enhances Competition and Collaboration

In a modern economic analysis of cities, we see that denser places maximise “collisionability”—the term popularised by the entrepreneur Tony Hsieh (Burke 2013), where less distance between individuals and economic actors allows ideas to be exchanged more rapidly and widely, driving both competition and collaboration. This was anticipated over a century ago by Marshall who noted that agglomerations have advantages related to idea sharing and “worker’s type”; “so great are the advantages which people following the same skilled trade get from near neighbourhood to one another. The mysteries of trade become no mystery; but are as it were in the air, and children learn many of them unconsciously” (Marshall 1890). The critical economic role of face-to-face interactions was also emphasised by Keynes (1963), who stressed the need for didactics and persuasion in the transmission of creative processes in his Essays in Persuasion. He argued that new and innovative ideas must overcome the initial scepticism that they inspire, which is best done through personal interactions (Keynes 1963). Collisionability is why urban places, as opposed to specific firms, have taken on so much importance when it comes to innovation. Face-to-face interactions drive not only idea production but consumption; all of the advantages that producers enjoy from being close to urban centres intersect with the advantages that consumers experience from living in them. The factors that grow businesses also grow regional economies and vice versa. Jacobs was one of the first to recognise that the city had supplanted the firm as the principle organising unit for innovation, and that the clustering of talented, smart and energetic people in cities had become a fundamental driver of innovation and economic development (Jacobs 1961, 1970, 1984). While firms specialise and divide labour into more specified and productive uses, Jacobs noted that cities organise natural, industrial and human inputs, combining and recombining ideas and skills to facilitate innovation and production. The Nobel Prize Laureate Robert Lucas later refined Jacobs’ studies, framing her ideas in terms of the locational advantages that stem from “human capital externalities”, his term for the ancillary benefits that come from the co-location of talented, ambitious and entrepreneurial people (Lucas 1988). Lucas formalised the role that dense urban areas play in localising human capital and information, creating knowledge spillovers and becoming engines of economic growth. The advantage of having many driven people clustered in the same locale is that it allows ideas to travel quickly without any specific costs related to the activity, as in an organisation.

3.5 Talent Drives Consumption and Prosperity

3.5

29

Talent Drives Consumption and Prosperity

Knowledge and creative workers are not just producers of high-value goods, but important consumers of them. As we have seen, knowledge workers increase wages, raising levels of regional prosperity. As incomes rise, consumers demand more luxury as opposed to necessity goods and services, and luxury goods and services are more likely to be found in big cities (Glaeser et al. 2001). Big companies that require a lot of creative workers have recognised this and changed their location patterns accordingly. Google, for example, which is headquartered in suburban Mountain View, California, has opened satellites in urban San Francisco, London, New York, Chicago, Tel Aviv and other cities (Katz 2014). Facebook has made efforts to incorporate “urban-like” features in its suburban headquarters in Menlo Park, California, including a miniature walkable shopping district that facilitates “collisionability” and spontaneous interactions. Like Google, it has invested heavily in an urban satellite in New York (Arieff 2012; Lagorio-Chafkin 2014). A report by Cortright (2020) highlights the extent to which American university graduates are being drawn to these diverse, populous and densely developed consumption capitals. Two-thirds of America’s 25–34 year-olds with undergraduate degrees live in the nation’s 52 largest metropolitan areas, and they are more than twice as likely to live in nearby urban neighbourhoods as any other group. 25– 34 year-old graduates also accounted for the majority of the population increase in urban neighbourhoods since 2010 with all of the 52 largest US metro areas recording an increase in this group of residents. In contrast, lower-paid service class and manufacturing workers have fewer options when it comes to where to locate; they must go where the jobs are. Due to high housing costs in the central parts of large cities, most of them are forced to live in the far peripheries and commute to their jobs. We discuss these spatial and income inequalities in the next chapter. Skilled and educated talent is more mobile; since knowledge jobs pay higher wages, knowledge workers have more to gain by searching for jobs over wider geographic areas and they have more disposable income to spend once they settle down. Consumption and lifestyle amenities play significant roles in their locational decisions, enough that they can be a determining factor in the relative success of a city.

3.6

Talent Supports Centres of Knowledge and Innovation

Many cities have universities that function as powerful drivers of innovation and economic growth. Over the past several decades, there have been countless instances of professors and students patenting commercial innovations and forming start-ups (Rosenberg and Nelson 1996; Florida 1999). Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, played a significant role in the rise of Silicon Valley, and MIT in

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3 Positioning Talent: History, Cities …

Cambridge was an important contributor to Boston’s Route 128 technology corridor (Saxenian 1996, 1991). Haifa’s Technion (Israel Institute of Technology) has been an important contributor to Israel’s burgeoning start-up economy. In Sweden, for example, 42% of residents in the Stockholm region aged 25–64 had an undergraduate degree or higher in 2018, which is much higher than the national share of 28% (Statistics Sweden 2018). In London, it is was 50%, compared to a national share of 42% (ONS 2017). In New York City, 38.1% of the population in 2019 had a BA degree or higher, compared to 32.1% for the USA as a whole. In Washington, DC, the share was even greater, 58.5% (US Census Bureau 2019). This is not to suggest that having a university guarantees success. Florida (2002) has pointed out how the city of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA) invested millions of dollars to facilitate spin-offs from its Carnegie Mellon University, only to see the most successful move to Boston or Silicon Valley. In Florida’s view, this shows how universities can be excellent producers of talent but that it in no way guarantees that talent will remain after graduation. High human capital individuals, in this case university graduates, tend to cluster in large, open cities that have an abundance of knowledge and cultural institutions, as well as natural and built amenities, and this is also evidenced by Comunian and Faggian (2011) in the case of the UK. The most effective thing a city can do to attract businesses, Florida (2002) argued, is not to build subsidised office parks or hand out tax abatements but ensure that it is a place where talent wants to settle. Once talented people begin to locate in a place, knowledge firms will follow. Having a university is a potentially enormous asset, but it is important to remember that talent is a flow and not a stock—it is highly mobile; it can move, and it does. The winning regions will be those that have knowledge institutions in combination with a vibrant, open, attractive quality of life, as discussed next. These places will both produce talent and retain it after graduation, as well as attract talent from other areas. In the next chapter, we discuss how this also generates income and occupational segregation (Florida and Gaetani 2020) and later how this might also lead to protests and activist movements for rights to the city.

3.7

Attracting Talent Back to the City

Several decades ago, the proliferation of urban crime and the availability of cheap land led many urban citizens and employers to relocate to the suburbs and exurbs1 of great metropolitan regions. Scientists and engineers in particular were drawn to the sprawling tracts, dubbed “nerdistans” (Kotkin 2002), that were sprouting up along the highways that knit America’s newly burgeoning technology hubs together. The “white flight” movement—when middle-class white families moved to the suburbs to escape such disadvantages of urban—was not nearly as extensive in Western Europe as it was in the USA, which partly explains why American and

3.7 Attracting Talent Back to the City

31

European cities are as different as they are when it comes to urban density, transportation, and cultural and political affairs (Patacchini et al. 2009). The tide changed, however. Though many talented people in the USA and Europe continue to live in detached single-family houses and work in suburban office parks, the centre of gravity began shifting back to cities, by necessity (more job opportunities and higher wages), but even more because of their quest for shorter commutes, congenial peers and attractive amenities—in short, for a higher quality of life. Ehrenhalt (2012) has called this back-to-the-city movement of the affluent and educated the “great inversion”. So what makes a place attractive to talent? The three most important factors, besides a thick labour market, are (Glaeser et al. 2001): A large diversity of goods, services and people. The creative class has a taste for diversity and enjoys being in places where they have many things to choose from, whether it is different types of restaurants, cultural events, shopping options or other forms of experience. Its members appreciate human diversity as well; they want to be in places that are inviting and open to all ethnicities, sexual orientations and cognitive styles, although we discuss later on how cities and the creative class can also be exclusionary (Leslie and Catungal 2012). Individuals are more likely to move when they are young, single and/or highly educated, and they are more likely to move to bigger cities because they have more of all of these things. Places that offer a fast-paced but easy lifestyle. As creative people earn more money, time becomes relatively more expensive and precious to them; they want to be able to get to work and enjoy a high quality of life without the burden of long commutes. Having their workplace, favourite restaurants, kids’ schools, day care, friends and green spaces in close proximity to each other is a huge advantage. Density, compactness, mixed-use and walkability—quintessential urban features— are all keys to talent attraction. Places that already have a high level of human capital. Talent attraction is often a virtuous cycle in which success feeds on itself. As human capital becomes more concentrated, it follows an endogenous process in which places with initially high concentrations of human capital increase their shares of it at the fastest pace (Berry and Glaeser 2005). Florida (2002) has suggested that this is because high human capital people have similar values and preferences; when a place has a high concentration of educated and talented people, it signals to other educated and talented people that it is a good place to be. However, not all cities are able to attract the smart and the talented. The fact is that in each nation only a few cities become true winners in the competition for the best and the brightest (Florida et al. 2020). One result is that the world is becoming divided into successful cities and unsuccessful cities. Glaeser et al. (2001) have classified modern cities into three types: (1) The resurgent dense (creative) cities. New York and San Francisco are the most prototypical, but many big European cities such as London and Paris fit this description as well. These cities provide a large variety of consumption

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options, have successful industries that have done well in the information economy, feature interesting built environments from an architectural perspective and, most importantly, have high levels of human capital. These places experience more gentrification than average, as low human capital individuals are priced out and replaced by highly skilled workers who can afford to pay higher living costs. (2) Ex-urban “edge cities”. These cities feature low densities and high levels of car dependency. They exist predominantly in the USA; Tyson’s Corner, near Washington, DC, and Anaheim in Orange County near Los Angeles are two classic examples. Given its higher petrol taxes and greater abundance of subsidised public transportation, Europe has many fewer edge cities than in the USA. Edge cities do exist as a type in Australia, New Zealand and Latin America to a certain extent. (3) Older, dense cities with little change or real growth. These cities have low property values and less successful industries, many of them legacy manufacturing. Examples of these are Manchester, England and Detroit and Michigan, USA. They are not political centres, so there have been few new investments in architecture. In general, these cities also have low levels of human capital. From a talent perspective, the first type of city seems to be the most attractive, which explains their resurgence. These cities fit in with the growing trend in which work-life activities merge and people seek to spend more time with their friends and families while also being able to work when they want and where they want. High incomes also enable the consumption of luxury goods, which these cities are well equipped to supply. With their manufacturing industries in decline, and a lack of amenities, the third type of city is facing the starkest challenges in the competition for talent. Some simply may not survive. In order to expand their opportunities and create conditions for success, they need to upgrade both their opportunities and their amenities. One way they can do this is to encourage more collaborations between businesses and universities, creating a climate for innovation to thrive in. Density and a higher share of talent are also key. While globalisation and decreasing transportation costs may have increased the return to some specialised manufacturing jobs, they have raised the value of creative talent overall—and paradoxically increased the importance of place. Contrary to Friedman’s (2006) flat world thesis, despite globe-shrinking technologies like e-mail, Skype, satellite phones and the Internet, there is still a major value from being close to one another that cannot be replaced by technology. A large part of this is down to collaboration and the potential to connect with others; as Lucas (1988, pp. 38–39) famously put it, “What can people be paying Manhattan or downtown Chicago rents for, if not for being near other people?”. This suggests that if places with low rents can attract creatives, they will enjoy a huge advantage.

3.8 The Transformation of Cities into “Entertainment Machines”

3.8

33

The Transformation of Cities into “Entertainment Machines”

Creative cities seemingly foster a large variety of choices (Hospers 2003; Bontje and Musterd 2016). As noted above, while manufactured goods can be produced and consumed anywhere, experience-related amenities like restaurants, museums, concert halls, nightclubs, boutiques, galleries and even natural scenery (i.e. coastal and mountain views) are place specific. Having a wide range of them within walking distance of home is only possible in places that have large enough populations to support specialisation. Such places have not only a lot of restaurants, but restaurants that offer exotic cuisines; they have not only music venues, but music that appeals to specific tastes—avant-garde jazz, contemporary opera and so on. The more amenities, the more talent (and vice versa) (Lloyd and Clark 2001). It is however important to acknowledge that the distribution of resources such as government funding for the arts may subsequently support cultural forms that are exclusionary to certain groups (Brook et al. 2020). Another advantage of skilled cities is that with so many new people moving in from so many places, it is generally easier to break into existing social networks or form new ones (Florida 2002); i.e. they make it easy to meet new people and make new friends. With their high shares of immigrants, LGBTQ+ and bohemian residents, it is perceived that there is also less pressure to conform (ibid), and this openness factor is an additional attraction for talent, who place a high premium on tolerance and benefit from it themselves. When a city is open to different ways of being, it sends a signal that it is open to new technological and commercial ideas as well. New ideas are not only more likely to be listened to in such places, but there is a greater likelihood that they can be transformed into economic value (Florida et al. 2008). We return to critically consider these assumptions of openness, accessibility and inclusivity later in the book.

3.9

The Importance of Authenticity

Jacobs’ (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities paid tribute to the “organised complexity” of healthy cities. In their natural and hence most vital state, she argued that cities pack old and new buildings, people of differing educations, ethnicities, incomes and sexual preferences, and commercial, private and public uses into the same small spaces. In trying to rationalise and simplify cities, modern urban planners inadvertently rob them not just of their authenticity but of their vital essence. “Dull, inert cities”, she wrote, “contain the seeds of their own destruction and little else. But lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration” (Jacobs 1961). City planners that are looking to revivify their cities and make them attractive to talent cannot simply build amenities from scratch—designating one street

3 Positioning Talent: History, Cities …

34

“restaurant row” or another an “art district” by default. Cities, like gardens, grow from the bottom up; top-down planners should take their cues from what neighbourhoods are already doing. Warnings against copying and generic provision have also been issued; “Don’t be a Silicon Whatever or a Creative Somewhere. The creative class doesn’t want generic amenities. Creative people look for authentic places that aren’t finished yet, places where you can add something of your own” (Florida, quoted in Hospers and Van Dalm 2005, p. 10). Florida’s injunction might be daunting for a city that does not have a colourful history or a legacy of impressive architecture to build on or a lively arts scene. But every city has people, and as the history of cities has taught us, when people come together, they solve problems in creative ways—they produce arts and crafts; they develop commercial enterprises; “Creative places in the city are just like living beings: they are born, grow, decay and can rise again. In my view, the streets are the vital organs of the creative city” (Jacobs quoted in Hospers and Van Dalm 2005, p. 10). Following this logic, the most important thing that city leaders and stakeholders can do is to see what is already germinating on their streets and then help it grow. However, as we discuss later on, caution is needed to avoid displacing the authenticity of cultural production and appropriating urban creativity for consumerist agendas and within the political vernacular of the creative city (Mould 2014). Furthermore, connection with activism and engagement against the uniformisation of spaces and their ownership in creative cities need to be considered.

3.10

Cities, Crisis and Change

After considering the rise and re-rise of cities and their intertwined history with knowledge and talent, it is important also to consider what happens to this creative agglomerate force in specific moments of crisis. Here, we consider specifically the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) and the most recent Covid-19 pandemic which began in 2020. The GFC represents a moment of critical thinking in academic literature on the trajectory of research on talent and its urban futures (Indergaard et al. 2013). In many ways, it is an overall “relativisation” of the continuous growth potential (Krätke 2012) that was previously associated with the idea of the creative city as an ultimate marriage of talent and its urban manifestations. Within this, the financial crisis has brought an increase in precarious working conditions for many, including much of the “creative core” (De Propris 2013), with a rise in self-employment and freelancing as we discuss later on. However, the crisis also exposed some problematic real-estate connections between neoliberal policy agendas and the development of culturally driven attractive redevelopment. Brokalaki and Comunian (2021) consider how the financial crisis in Athens had completely reshaped the financial landscape of the local urban culture and creative economy in the city, leading to the closure of major cultural landmarks of the city. They also cite the

3.10

Cities, Crisis and Change

35

example of the city of Southampton in UK for which the financial crisis meant that a cultural quarter development planned in 2003 would only be completed and delivered 15 years later (BBC 2018). In similar style, Ashley (2014) looks at the case study of Seattle and reflects on the widely accepted urban strategies that pushed arts institutions to engage in bricks and mortar projects with the aspiration to contribute to the physical rehabilitation of urban areas in need of transformation in the pre-crisis period. The study highlights that while this was an unquestioned practice in the pre-2008 expansion period, the same framework would not hold further in a post-2008 world. In relation to the current global health pandemic, we can also argue that cities present an interesting point of convergence when considering the relationship between talent and Covid-19. Cities and economic core locations have been hardest hit by the pandemic (Ascani et al. 2020), with higher rates of viral transmission connected to population size, the configuration and use of urban architecture and infrastructure such as agglomeration, air quality and transport networks (Lai et al. 2020; Sharifi and Khavarian-Garmsir 2020). The quintessential urban feature key to talent attraction (Glaeser et al. 2001; Lucas 1988) also provides the architecture that facilitates the flow of pathogens (Lai et al. 2020). Furthermore, cities have a higher presence of the infrastructure and economic activity which have most drastically affected by national and regional restrictions and reductions in footfall (Nathan and Overman 2020). As we have discussed here, highly populated (creative) cities attract and retain talent through job opportunities, experience-based amenities and consumption opportunities (Glaeser et al. 2001; Florida 2002), provisions severely affected by Covid-19 and associated restrictions on work and social life. This includes hospitality and leisure services, and particularly in audience facing cultural sectors where sociality and the interpersonal encounters often integral to their delivery have been undermined (Gross et al. 2021). The advantages of having creative people clustered in the same locale (Lucas 1988) may disperse through long-term remote working, although it is debated whether technologically enabled remote working can really enable the same (or greater) levels of productivity and innovation as afforded by “collisionability” (Burke 2013). We also know that creative activities are built more on interactions between human beings and that places that facilitate personal communication are crucial for creativity (Fujita and Thisse 2002). Again, the ability for online communication platforms and virtual spaces to replicate such interactions to a greater or lesser extent remains to be seen. Even if this is achieved, the loss of face-to-face interactions will continue to impact urban consumption through a loss of proximity and could therefore stunt regional economic recovery. While a large proportion of “knowledge work” (and some aspects of creative work) have moved online and adapted to working from home models, there also remain large swathes of the population with occupations in which working from home is not possible. This group face both an increased risk of viral exposure and job displacement or disruption (Baker 2020). As we discuss later in the book, this includes talent whose creative work, or work within the cultural and creative

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industries has been cancelled, cannot be translated into a digital format or requires access to cultural infrastructure (Comunian and England 2020). While we have seen an “exodus” of talent from city centres during the first phases of the pandemic and our interaction with urban spaces and infrastructure has undoubtedly changed (Nathan and Overman 2020), there is a degree of confidence that “this too shall pass” (Couclelis 2020). It is speculated that agglomeration economies (such as entertainment, culture and leisure) will resume their urban prominence (Florida et al. 2021). While there remain many uncertainties, it is likely that the speed and success of this urban recovery will vary internationally depending on the duration of the pandemic, associated restrictions and exit strategies (Nathan and Overman 2020). An understanding of the trajectory of cities and their relationship with talent, including the advantages they confer but also the inequalities that emerge, can be seen as crucial to urban recovery and future inclusive and sustainable development. Note 1. A prosperous area beyond a city’s suburbs.

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Chapter 4

Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities

Abstract This chapter examines some of the challenges that the age of talent presents for individuals, firms and cities. It highlights the costs of developing the “superstar” cities, discusses gaps between the “haves” and the “have nots” and addresses how big cities exacerbate income inequalities and segregation based on race and class. Throughout the chapter, we acknowledge the cyclical nature of these disparities and how they have been exacerbated by periods of crisis including the global financial crisis and the recent Covid-19 pandemic. The discussion then turns to drivers of gentrification and the influence of rising housing costs but also the cultural tastes of aggressively entrepreneurial newcomers that flock to big cities. The challenges that re-urbanisation presents to both the suburbs and rural areas are then discussed. The chapter concludes with reflection on the need to address rising socio-economic and spatial inequalities in cities and beyond that have emerged through mass urbanisation and the age of talent in the pursuit of economic growth.

4.1

Introduction

The previous chapter explored some of the research that underpinned our initial understanding of the roles that geography and spatial dependence play in the patterns and dynamics of talent, productivity and economic growth. As we saw, high levels of talent have not just moved back to cities in general, but specifically to bigger and denser cities that have a wide range of industries and people. In this chapter, we examine some of the contemporary challenges that the age of talent presents for individuals, firms and cities. Here, we take a broad perspective of the creative class (Florida 2002), as people paid to think, while later in the book we discuss how a subset of this talent—creative workers—exemplifies different trends, particularly in relation to job security. With only one-third of the labour force belonging to the creative class, two-thirds of workers are closed out of the greatest economic opportunities. The gap between the “haves” and “have nots” is growing wider, and the disparities extend beyond wages and income. They influence housing structures through © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_4

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increased residential segregation; they cause labour markets to become more polarised; perhaps most importantly, they are reflected in numerous measures of well-being and happiness, job satisfaction, the likelihood of becoming unemployed, health, life expectancy and more. This chapter highlights the fundamental inequalities that underpin urban environments and have been exacerbated by both the global financial crisis (GFC) and the recent Covid-19 pandemic (Acuto et al. 2020; Sharifi and Khavarian-Garmsir 2020).

4.2

The Cost of “Superstar” Cities

As we discussed earlier, creative cities offer many benefits to skilled talent. However, these do not come cheaply. The fraction of increased expenses that cannot be explained by wages are attributed to quality of life (or amenities), a formulation that is expressed as wages + amenities = housing prices. In 2011, a study based on Gallup polling in the USA that tracked the factors that make people satisfied with their communities found that economic factors (i.e. the labour market, affordable housing, future economic prospects and public transportation) did not explain as much as softer values (i.e. whether the physical setting was aesthetically appealing, if it was a good place to meet and make friends). These softer values were also more strongly related to the likelihood that survey respondents would want to stay in the community in which they currently lived (Florida et al. 2011; Mellander et al. 2011). A 2006 study (Gyourko et al. 2006) had also previously noted the growing divergence in housing prices between the most expensive city regions and those at the median; it dubbed the biggest, highest-amenity and fastest-growing places— those that attract talent—as “superstar cities” and explained their high prices as a result of limited land for new housing in combination with a rapid increase in high-income households. A study of the geography of billionaires (Florida and Mellander 2019) found that they are over-represented in these so-called superstar cities. In New York, for example, there were 116 billionaires with a total net worth of $537 billion at the time of the study. San Francisco had 71 billionaires, with a total net worth of $365 billion. Moscow, Hong Kong and London rounded out the top five cities worldwide for billionaire wealth, though for sheer numbers of billionaires LA edged out London. The six cities combined had a total of 420 billionaires. The same places also tend to experience a spike in culture and culture-related industries. In a study of metro shares of culture-related industries in the USA (Grodach et al. 2014), LA and New York dominated across the board. LA’s share of creative occupations was almost three times higher than the national average, while New York’s share was double and if we look at specific occupations (musicians, actors, producers, fashion designers) some shares were much, much higher. A study of Swedish creative occupations found that 42% were located in the Stockholm

4.2 The Cost of “Superstar” Cities

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region, even though Stockholm housed only 20% of the national population (Mellander and Florida 2006). However, this influx of wealth and culture is not wholly positive. Although wages are higher, so are housing costs—high enough, in many cases, to wipe out the relatively small wage premium that lower-paid service and manufacturing workers receive in bigger cities. Such workers are caught in a genuine bind, as the places that offer them the greatest opportunities make them almost impossible to take advantage of. This bind is also experienced by the subset of the creative class working in the creative industries whose employment situation can be more akin to those in service and manufacturing as we discuss later in the book. Gentrification is already turning once highly diverse neighbourhoods into shopping districts, whose luxury stores purvey the same brands that can be found in any suburban mall. As high wages, amenities and land-use restrictions combine to make cities like New York, San Francisco, London and Berlin increasingly unaffordable for all but the very wealthy, there are real reasons to worry that many of the talented people that drove their success in the first place will be forced to leave (Novy and Colomb 2013). A disturbingly high percentage of London’s luxury housing is being sold to absentee owners, and New York’s “billionaire row” along 57th Street may be a harbinger of a much more economically sterile future (Cumming 2015; Proud 2014). In a blog for the New York Times, Krugman (2015) stated that “We’re now arguably looking at something new, as the really wealthy—domestic malefactors of great wealth, but also oligarchs, princelings, and sheiks—buy up prime real estate and leave it vacant, creating luxury-shopping wastelands at best […] expensive ghost districts at worst”. This sort of plutocratisation is a form of gentrification on steroids. Glaeser (2011) has suggested that places like Dubai and Las Vegas that are rich in a lot of the “experience factors” that should be attractive to talent have also become “too much of a good thing”.

4.3

Disparities of Wages but also of Well-Being

As we have already seen, the creative class has grown substantially. According to Florida (2014a), the creative class in the USA grew from approximately 12% of the workforce in 1900 to more than 30% in 2014. Over that same period, the share of the service class (people who work in routine occupations in food preparation and service and retail trade, and who provide health, personal and administrative services) nearly doubled, from 23 to 45% of the total workforce. Meanwhile, the share of traditional blue-collar jobs in manufacturing, skilled trades, maintenance and transportation dropped dramatically, from a high of nearly 60% of the total workforce to just 23%. Income disparities between the creative, service and working classes are stark. Using US figures again, in 2010 the average annual wage of a creative class professional was $70,714, more than twice what an average service worker earned

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4 Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities

($29,188). The average blue-collar worker received $36,991, which is 27% more than the average service class worker, but still only 52% of what an average creative class worker earned. Concentrations of women, young workers and minorities are also much higher in the service sector than they are in the creative class. For example, while African Americans accounted for just 8.8% of creative class workers in 2010, they made up 14.5% of the service class (Florida 2014a). In their broad conceptualisation, creative class jobs do not just pay better than service class and blue-collar jobs, and they are less precarious. During the financial crisis, creative class workers had a significantly lower probability of being unemployed compared to service or blue-collar workers (Gabe et al. 2012). Individuals without college degrees were hit particularly hard by the 2008 recession. However, in the next chapter we unpack how for subsets of the creative class integral to the creative economy, precarity is an engrained feature of employment, particularly following the GFC, and how this has resulted in particular challenges during the economic crisis associated with Covid-19. Nevertheless, the middle has dropped out of the labour market in many countries in the Western world, which is bifurcated between relatively high-skill/high-pay “creative” jobs and relatively low-pay/low-skill service jobs. The number and share of well-paid manufacturing jobs has declined steeply, partly due to globalisation and offshoring, and partly to changes in technology. Indeed, there is a large literature on the effects of automation, robotics and other skill-biased technical changes on the job market for manufacturing workers (Autor 2010), while creative jobs are perceived to be at lower risk (Bakhshi et al. 2015). Acemoglu provides a theoretical rationale for the connection between skill-biased technical change and inequality (Acemoglu 1998; 1999; Acemoglu and Autor 2011); in general, the greater the impact of technology on a manufacturing environment, the lower the wages for workers who do not have the education or the skills that it demands. As a number of studies have shown, this job polarisation underpins and reinforces regional wage inequality (Goos and Manning 2007; Goos et al. 2009; Manning 2004). Higher levels of human capital are not just associated with higher incomes but with secure, full-time employment (although this is not always the case for creative graduates and creative workers as we discuss later on). Illustrating the importance of a college degree in today’s job market, a Gallup report (Gallup and University of Virginia 2014) showed that the share of college-educated adults that were employed full time for an employer in the USA in 2013 (58%) was significantly higher as the share of those that had no more than a high school degree (34%). Those “good jobs” make a major difference in Americans’ daily existence; full-time employees are more likely to be positive about their lives, particularly when they think about the future. When Gallup asked respondents to rate what they think their life will be like in five years, full-time employees expressed their optimism with an average rating of 8.0 on a 10-point scale, where 10 is the best possible life. In contrast, those who were not employed full time for an employer gave their future lives an average rating of 7.4 (Clifton and Marlar 2011). Research on the relationship between human capital and happiness (Florida et al. 2013) suggests that happiness is driven more by education levels than by income at

4.3 Disparities of Wages but also of Well-Being

45

the metropolitan level. Individuals with college degrees not only have more occupational opportunities but engage in more challenging, stimulating and fulfilling work (Judge et al. 2001). Well-educated individuals also have a greater sense of personal control than the less-educated, even after adjusting for employment status, job autonomy, earnings, minority status, age and marital status (Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Ross and Mirowsky 1992). That added sense of control facilitates the development of effective and flexible coping strategies (Mirowsky and Ross 2003; Wheaton 1983; Turner and Noh 1983). By affording people opportunities and resources to enrich their lives, education has both direct and indirect effects on happiness. Higher levels of education are associated at the metro level with better health outcomes, including lower levels of smoking and obesity. Such places also have lower levels of crime, better schools, better quality housing, more natural amenities like green spaces and water views, greater numbers of consumer amenities such as restaurants and cultural venues, higher levels of openness and diversity, and a higher quality of life more generally (Florida 2014a).

4.4

Big City—Big Income Inequality

Jobs in both the creative or knowledge sector and the service sector are by and large “distance sensitive”, which is to say that production and consumption typically occur in the same locations. The services that talent in the knowledge economy (e.g. doctors, consultants, professors, engineers, architects, attorneys and so on) provides usually require face-to-face meetings and access to facilities such as courts, corporate headquarters, laboratories and schools, which are likely to be located in cities. For all that technology has shrunk the world, the ability to hold virtual meetings has not had a significant impact on the creative class’s preference for urban clustering (Florida 2005). While the Covid-19 pandemic has created a surge in remote working and may result in the adoption of more hybrid working practices, this is unlikely to entirely replace the need for offices or co-working spaces as we reach peak capacity for technology to deliver the same productivity, innovation and collaboration benefits of physical clustering as discussed in Chap. 5. Importantly, if the creative class chooses to cluster in cities, the service class is drawn to them out of necessity. Infant and elder day care workers, home health aides, food workers and house cleaners must be located near their clients, who to a great extent are the knowledge workers that can afford to pay for their services. While manufacturing work can be sited wherever land and labour are cheapest, it remains impossible to serve a virtual restaurant meal or provide a manicure or haircut from a distance. This is why the largest clusters of well-paid knowledge workers and the largest clusters of poorly paid service workers both tend to be found in the same locations, which of course is a great driver of regional income inequality.

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4 Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities

Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century and Stiglitz’s The Great Divide (Piketty 2014; Stiglitz 2015) focus on rising levels of overall income inequality which can be exaggerated in large cities—Gini index measured inequality in the New York metro (0.513), for example, is much higher than in the USA as a whole (0.482) based on 2017 data from the Census Bureau. A recent report on the UK highlighted that inequality in London is higher than in all other areas, with over-representation at both ends of the wealth and poverty spectrum—measured after housing costs, 28% of Londoners live in poverty (UK average 22%); however, 16% are in the top 10% of the national income distribution (Agrawal and Phillips 2020). While inequality may be higher in big cities, the wages that big city workers receive are also higher across the board, thanks to the positive economic effects of agglomeration. However, the fact that more or less everyone earns more in bigger cities does not mean that everybody is financially better off than they are in rural places and smaller cities. Cost of living is a factor to be considered in the equation for wage earners, and the most attractive big cities (i.e. the places with the highest wages in combination with the best amenities) have very high costs of living. Although a study by Florida (2013) found that “the average worker” was better off in a big city, even after higher living costs were deducted, that “average” turned out to be misleading because creative class wages were so high. When the labour force was divided into creative workers, service class workers and blue-collar workers and the numbers were run separately for each group, the picture changed dramatically. All three groups earned higher wages than their rural and smaller city counterparts, but only creative workers had money left over after living expenses were deducted. Service class and blue-collar workers netted less than they would have if they lived in smaller cities or in rural areas.

4.5

Bigger and More Successful Means More Segregation

During the last several decades, the jobs that have shown the most growth are the best-paid knowledge jobs and the worst-paid service jobs—which, as we have seen, tend to cluster around the biggest urban marketplaces. This has resulted in high levels of urban income inequality. It has also given rise to pronounced spatial segregation effects relating to income, race and class but also education. As migrants have flooded into the most attractive cities, housing values have risen sharply. Many of these places had very limited supplies of housing to begin with and have been unable to keep up with the demand, thanks to restrictive zoning and land-use regulations (Glaeser et al. 2006). This has led to a housing shortage in metropolitan areas, in which the most expensive cities, like San Francisco and London, have become difficult for anyone but the most well paid to enter (as discussed earlier). Over the same period, we have also witnessed a large sorting out of families within metros. Inequalities between local authorities can subsequently be greater than those between different cities or regions. In the UK, the inner city

4.5 Bigger and More Successful Means More Segregation

47

segregation of the wealthy and the poor is particularly prevalent in London where in the wealthiest boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea (West London) median full-time earnings are 53% above the UK average, while in Barking and Dagenham (East London) they are 3% below average (Agrawal and Phillips 2020). As housing values have skyrocketed in the most attractive neighbourhoods, less-advantaged individuals are pushed into less desirable neighbourhoods that have fewer amenities, less transit access, sparser job opportunities, poorer schools and often very high levels of crime and incarceration. Of course, there is a long legacy of racial segregation in the USA but the context of this is now changing from discrimination to economic causes. Cutler et al. (1999) examined the patterns of American racial segregation over the last century and found that while it has been closely connected to population density, the driving forces have shifted over time (Cutler et al. 1999). From roughly 1890 to 1940, segregation was primarily driven by black migration to racially exclusive neighbourhoods in urban areas and cities. Then, the segregation was reinforced by white populations systematically trying to keep black individuals out from where they lived. The result was highly black urban centres surrounded by highly white suburban areas. Thanks in large part to the civil rights movement, which overturned explicitly discriminatory lending practices and redlining,1 spatial segregation based on race decreased after 1970. However, as housing prices began to pick up in the 1990s, de facto income segregation returned and with that racial segregation as well, since black home owners and renters have, on average, much lower incomes than whites (Cutler et al. 1999). Krysan and Crowder (2017) note a decline in racial segregation between 1980 and 2010, particularly in the number of all-white neighbourhoods, reflecting greater integration and increased diversity in metropolitan areas. However, they caution that this decline is moderate at best. They also report significant variation across metropolitan areas and increasing segregation in some instances (i.e. in areas with high growth in Asian and Latino populations). Furthermore, “even as overall segregation is declining, there is strong continuity in neighbourhood racial composition” and this durability of racial composition appears strongest in predominantly black neighbourhoods (ibid, p. 21). A 2015 report (Florida and Mellander 2015) explored the wider patterns of economic segregation in the USA and found that segregation by education (no high school diploma versus university degree), income (poor versus wealthy) and socio-economic class (creative, working and service) all increase as locations become bigger, denser and wealthier. The study calculated the shares of each group that would have to move to other neighbourhoods in the metro to make that group’s distribution in that metro area equal to everybody else’s (“a dissimilarity index”). Table 4.1 illustrates the findings. Consider, for example, the segregation ratio of educated vs. non-educated workers in US metros. On average across all metros, almost a third (28.8%) of university graduates would have to move to neighbourhoods where they are not over-represented to make their distribution across neighbourhoods be similar to the distribution of everyone without a university degree. This can be compared to

48 Table 4.1 Values for mean, lowest and highest levels of economic segregation across US metropolitan areas (data from Florida and Mellander 2015)

4 Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities Group Income Poverty Wealth Education Did not complete high school University grad Occupation Working class Service class Creative class

Mean

Lowest

Highest

0.323 0.456

0.170 0.283

0.485 0.646

0.277

0.102

0.503

0.288

0.139

0.441

0.196 0.120 0.206

0.085 0.059 0.111

0.330 0.225 0.344

segregation based on occupation, where blue-collar workers and creative class workers have an average segregation score across US metropolitan areas of 0.2 (or 20% approximately). This suggests that wealthy are more segregated than poor, that highly educated are more segregated than low educated and that creative workers are more segregated than other types of workers. Income, education and class segregation are very strongly associated with population size, density and overall affluence, with positive correlations to average metro wages, income and economic output per capita. The strongest segregation pattern was based on income. Almost 46% of wealthy people would have to move to neighbourhoods where they are under-represented in order for their distribution in the metro to be like all the other groups, as compared to just 32.3% for the poor. This suggests that economic segregation is driven more by the top than the bottom of the economic order, since affluent people are the most segregated (Florida and Mellander 2015). Overall, economic segregation tends to be the most intensive in high-tech, knowledge-based metros. It is positively correlated with high-tech industry, creative class share and the share of college grads. In addition, it is associated with two key indicators of population diversity—LGBT and immigrants—that also tend to coincide with larger, denser and more knowledge-based metros. Economic segregation is also positively correlated to two other sets of factors that follow from metro size and density: the share of the population that walks, bikes and takes mass transit to work as opposed to driving alone, and the share of liberal versus conservative voters (Florida and Mellander 2015). Race is highly reflected in economic segregation, which is positively associated with a rising share of population that is Black, Latino or Asian, and negatively associated with a rising share of white. Finally, and not at all surprisingly, given its associations with large cities, economic segregation is closely connected to income inequality and even more so with wage inequality. In fact, the effects of economic segregation appear to compound those of economic inequality and may well be more socially and economically damaging than inequality alone (Florida and

4.5 Bigger and More Successful Means More Segregation

49

Mellander 2015). Research by Diamond has shown that the positive “neighbourhood effects” that go along with wealth segregation (safer streets, better schools and health care, a wider range of services and natural and built amenities) add up to an inequality of well-being that is 20% higher than the simple wage gap between college and high school graduates can account for (Diamond 2016). Conversely, less-advantaged communities suffer not just from a lack of economic resources, but from negative neighbourhood effects like higher rates of crime, school dropouts, infant mortality, chronic disease and violence, that compound and perpetuate the misery. Sharkey (2013) states that disadvantaged groups are literally “stuck in place”, and argues that for the multigenerational nature of neighbourhood inequality, it is passed down from parents to children much as genetic background and financial wealth are transmitted across generations. Existing inequity is often exposed in emergency conditions (Kim and Bostwick 2020), and the connections between spatial, economic and health inequalities have been severely exposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Early enquiries highlight how “new fissures interact with existing inequalities along various key dimensions, including socio-economic status, education, age, gender, ethnicity and geography” (Blundell et al. 2020, p. 291). Studies on the UK and US communities have documented the disproportionate number of Covid-19 cases and deaths among front-line workers, less-advantaged people and communities, and racial and ethnic minorities (Blundell et al. 2020; Nguyen et al. 2020; Kim and Bostwick 2020).The pandemic has therefore held up a mirror to the existing inequalities that have plagued cities (and wider regions) and could leave a long-term legacy of further inequality (Blundell et al. 2020) without significant governmental recovery efforts that address pre- and post-pandemic inequalities.

4.6

Big Successful City Equals More Gentrification

While the face of economic segregation is most often illustrated by slums, it is at the same time driven by wealth, as more affluent home buyers hike up prices in formerly modest neighbourhoods. Housing values are set at the intersection of supply and demand, and while higher incomes and wages drive the demand side of this equation, cities with a limited amount of housing suffer from effects on the supply side. When the two forces work in combination, we see a high appreciation of housing values (Glaeser et al. 2005, 2006). A complementary stream of research suggests that the increase in housing values is also driven in part by the locational choices of “artsier” members of the creative class. Artistic and LGBT+ populations tend to be distributed in a very uneven way, creating an “artistic dividend” where clusters of graphic artists, painters, sculptors, photographers, musicians, actors and other bohemians increase the vibrancy and diversity of some neighbourhoods. This in turn attracts other smart, creative people, and as their reputations for stylishness grow they are eventually overtaken by the rich (Florida and Mellander 2010; Markusen and Schrock 2006). Florida and

50

4 Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities

Mellander (2010) indicate that these groups create amenities to fit their cultural activities. In other words, it is not the urban pioneers who drive up the housing values; it is the wealthier and more aggressively entrepreneurial waves of newcomers that follow. This can result in the artists and creative communities themselves becoming complicit in naturalising gentrification processes (McLean 2014) or even being pushed out of the city (Novy and Colomb 2013). While the influx of more affluent home owners in poor neighbourhoods may spark positive changes (improved public services and schools, better restaurants and retail options, higher property values for home owners), it does not mean that the rich and poor are actually mixing: For many working class and service class residents […] all it usually does is raise their rents and perhaps create more low-end service jobs for waiters, housecleaners, and the like. While the classes may be living in close physical proximity, they do not intermix in any meaningful way. They might as well be occupying separate universes. (Florida 2014b, p. 202)

Evidence for the imagined trickle-down effects of wealth in the superstar metros in the USA such as Boston, New York, San Francisco and Washington DC—areas experiencing the most gentrification—is very limited. A 2014 study examined high-poverty neighbourhoods in the 51 biggest US metros between 1970 and 2010 (Cortright 2014). Overall, the population of the high-poverty neighbourhoods had increased by 30% during this time period. Seven hundred and thirty-seven out of the 1119 neighbourhoods that were ranked as chronically high poverty in 1970 were still chronically high poverty 40 years later. Two hundred and seventy-seven were ranked as poor, and only 105 (less than 10%) had seen their poverty rates decline significantly. All in all, the depth and persistence of urban poverty are much more concerning than the negative effects of new urban wealth. In the nearly two decades since the conceptualisation of the creative class (Florida 2002) and development of creative city strategies, substantial critique has been levied against their underpinning by neoliberal agendas (Mould 2015) and lack of inclusivity and sustainability (Chatterton 2000). The negative implications of the age of talent and the inequalities that have been created and exacerbated have indeed been acknowledged and investigated by those behind the original theories (Florida 2017) to protect the space for talent and present alternative development models.

4.7

Beyond the City

The re-urbanisation trend creates challenges beyond the city limits. While poverty is still more pronounced in the central parts of metros, it is increasing more rapidly in the suburbs. A 2012 study found that the poor populations in the suburbs of the USA’s 100 largest metropolitan areas increased by 139% over the last decade, while the increase in cities was less than half that at just 50% (Kneebone 2014). This can

4.7 Beyond the City

51

be partly explained by faster population growth in the suburbs, but it is also related to the labour market. The majority of workers in metropolitan areas who work in service occupations (25% of which pay less than $10 per hour) live in suburban neighbourhoods where housing has become relatively more affordable than it is in urban cores. It also connects with the changing lifestyle preferences of (sections of) the creative class who may continue to live in a smaller space and incur high living costs (including paying for private school fees) in order to continue to enjoy access to cafes and restaurants, the broader supply of culture and the demographic diversity and openness that come with urban life (Florida 2010). Many are also willing to pay a premium in urban housing costs and long commutes to live in cities while working in suburbs. Reverse commuting is one of the fastest growing trends in some regions (Prevost 2007; Shuit 2000) and represents a complete reversal of the former pattern of “white flight”—when middle-class white families moved to the suburbs to escape the disadvantages of urban life (i.e. high house prices, crowding, crime, pollution, lack of green space). The increased demand for those modest living spaces raises their prices, sending less-advantaged urbanites further and further afield in search of affordable housing. Re-urbanisation also creates huge challenges for many rural areas that are being left behind. As more and more young, educated and talented people move to big cities, the rural places and the smaller towns and cities that they leave behind are often trapped in a cycle of decline. This is the case in Europe (Bjerke and Mellander 2017) as well as in many parts of North America. For those who remain behind in the shrinking (and hence less productive) places, the economic and social challenges are increasingly severe. Worse still, these negative effects cascade. With fewer new people coming into the labour market, a rural area or small city’s store of knowledge, skills and ideas gets stale and out of date. This makes it less likely that firms will locate in the region in future. In addition, their market power diminishes as their populations decline. There is less money to support restaurants, stores, cafes, night clubs and other amenities, which drives even more people away. Eventually, not only amenities are scarce, but vital services like supermarkets, petrol stations, GP services, hospitals and post offices disappear. An additional compounding effect comes from the fact that it is mainly young people that leave (Bjerke and Mellander 2017), thus increasing the average age and depressing birth rates even more. This does not mean that all rural places will disappear from the map—some people truly prefer living in small towns or the countryside. The winning rural areas, in our view, will be those that understand that the flight of talent has as much to do with lifestyle as with job opportunities, and that work to leverage their lifestyle advantages to retain their youth (or at least induce them to return home after graduation). Doing this requires the coordination and collaboration of policy-makers, local industry, property owners and other key actors. The winning rural regions will be those that reject silver bullet solutions, since no single infrastructure project, no matter how ambitious, will be enough to change the mind of highly educated 25-year-olds who made up their mind to migrate to an exciting

52

4 Challenging Talent: Cities and the Cycle of Rising Disparities

city. What is needed is a hailstorm of strategies and projects that promote a high enough quality of life to retain and attract both talented people and potential employers.

4.8

Closing the Gaps in Our Cities

The creative class has in many ways been a force for productive growth. However, urban revival has also created stark socio-economic disparities. Clearly, the most pressing challenge facing national and local leaders and city stakeholders is to close the gap between the haves and have nots. How can the creative knowledge sector become more diverse (particularly in relation to race and class)? How can cities become better places for everyone, building inclusive and sustainable economies for the future? A vast amount of research connects education with higher productivity, higher wages and higher overall prosperity, suggesting that increasing access to higher education and vocational training is a clear place to start in ensuring a diverse supply of talent. However, education is itself increasingly under the pressure of neoliberal and marketisation forces (Molesworth et al. 2010). Industry and policy must do its part as well. While the overall share of creative jobs has increased, research in 2015 had suggested it would take several decades before the creative and the non-creative shares of the labour market reached parity, and that was assuming the pace of growth had continued at the same rate (Martin et al. 2015). As we explore later in the book, subsectors of the creative class (in the super-creative core) also have radically different experiences in relation to income and employment security compared with those in “creative professions”. Both policy-makers and industry leaders must address the structural precarity experienced by talent in the creative economy in order to support future sustainable prosperity. At the same time, the spatial and geographical dimensions of inequality must be addressed. The less-advantaged are increasingly relegated to neighbourhoods where their social and economic exclusion compounds their economic struggles. Although everyone earns higher wages in bigger productive cities, only the top 30% of earners make enough to cover the extra housing cost; the 70% who serve them their restaurant meals, provide day care and eldercare for their children and parents, drive their taxis and buses, cut their hair and lawns and clean the streets are losing ground (Florida 2014a). It is true that cities have been unequal for as long as they have existed. Two and a half millennia ago, Plato wrote already in 422 that “any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other one for the rich” (Plato 1973). Those divides have been greatly exacerbated today, and they threaten to undermine the very conditions that drive urban success. As cities and urban neighbourhoods increasingly sort themselves, they lose their diversity and vitality —their creativity, as it were. And as poorer cities become poorer, they can become trapped in irreversible cycles of decline.

4.8 Closing the Gaps in Our Cities

53

The most successful cities in the long run will be those that can attract and absorb the widest and most diverse populations. This requires strategies to keep their housing mixed and their neighbourhoods affordable. It means investing in every part of the city, including its poorest neighbourhoods, and investments in transportation and communication infrastructure, to ensure that people in every neighbourhood have access to jobs and economic opportunity. The decline of social mobility (Chetty et al. 2014a, b) is highly related to spatial segregation (Bischoff and Reardon 2014), and the frustrations that it engenders give rise to political backlash and even civil disturbances. It is not surprising that the poorest neighbourhoods in the most successful cities have been vulnerable to riots (i.e. Los Angeles in 1992, Paris in 2005, London in 2011 and Stockholm in 2013) and civil unrest (across the USA and beyond in 2020 in connection with Black Lives Matter). These events affect everyone—affluent as well as poor—and if current trends continue, they are likely to worsen. Later, we discuss how talent has been empowered through protest for their right to the city and against the structural precarity of creative work. Closing the gaps is vital for all regions, not just cities. It must occur in rural areas too, to solve the problems of depopulation and brain drain that are decimating so many towns and villages. The strategies that can best address this problem will differ across countries, depending on how vigorously they reallocate tax resources from richer regions to poorer, and what percentage of local services is paid for by their national governments. Nevertheless, action must be taken and soon, as the negative net migration that began decades ago is reaching a tipping point and many places are facing a potentially irreversible decline. To be realistic, we must recognise that the process of mass urbanisation has been underway for 200 years and it remains likely to continue to accelerate. Although no one can predict what will happen with complete certainty, the best guide to the future is the past, and that shows us that the vast majority of the population prefers to reside in urban rather than rural locations. One conclusion is equally true for cities and rural areas alike. The places that best understand the unique challenges of the age of talent and support true diversity will be tomorrow’s biggest winners. In crisis times, such as 2008 (GFC), high human capital places, which bigger regions are by definition, tend to recover faster. The diversity of their labour markets builds in redundancy—if one industry is struck by a severe crisis, other industries may still be hiring. It is likely that we will see similar dynamics unfold in the economic recovery from Covid-19, although the speed and extent of recovery arguably will be connected to the overall duration of the crisis itself (Nathan and Overman 2020). Note 1. Redlining is a systematic denial of various services and/or communities, often based on race.

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Florida R (2017) The new urban crisis: how our cities are increasing inequality, deepening segregation, and failing the middle class-and what we can do about it. Basic Books Florida R, Mellander C (2010) There goes the metro: how and why bohemians, artists and gays affect regional housing values. J Econ Geogr 10:167–188 Florida R, Mellander C (2015) Segregated city: the geography of economic segregation in America's metros. Martin Porsperity Institute, Toronto Florida R, Mellander C (2019) The geography of the global super-rich. Cities 88:112–124 Florida R, Mellander C, Stolarick K (2011) Beautiful places: the role of perceived aesthetic beauty in community satisfaction. Reg Stud 45:33–48 Florida R, Mellander C, Rentfrow PJ (2013) The happiness of cities. Reg Stud 47:613–627 Gabe T, Florida R, Mellander C (2012) The creative class and the crisis. Cambridge J Regions, Econ Soc, 6(1):37–53 Gallup and University of Virginia (2014) Great jobs great lives. In: The 2014 gallup-purdue index report. Gallup, Washington D.C Glaeser EL, Gyourko J, Saks R (2005) Why have housing prices gone up? American Economic Review, 95(2):329–333 Glaeser EL, Gyourko J, Saks RE (2006) Urban growth and housing supply. J Econ Geogr 6:71–89 Glaeser E (2011) Triumph of the city: How urban spaces make us human. Pan Macmillan, London Goos M, Manning A (2007) Lousy and lovely jobs: the rising polarization of work in Britain. Rev Econ Stat 89:118–133 Goos M, Manning A, Salomons A (2009) Job polarization in Europe. Am Econ Rev 99(2):58–63 Grodach C, Currid-Halkett E, Foster N et al (2014) The location patterns of artistic clusters: a metro-and neighborhood-level analysis. Urban Studies 51:2822–2843 Gyourko J, Mayer C, Sinai T (2006) Superstar Cities, Working Paper No. 12355, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts Judge TA, Thoresen CJ, Bono JE et al (2001) The job satisfaction–job performance relationship: a qualitative and quantitative review. Psychol Bull 127:376 Kim SJ, Bostwick W (2020) Social vulnerability and racial inequality in COVID-19 deaths in Chicago. Health Educ Behav 47(4):509–513 Kneebone E (2014) The growth and spread of concentrated poverty, 2000 to 2008–2012. The Brookings Institution, Washington D.C Krugman P (2015) Preliminary notes on inequality and urbanism. New York Times blog (Online) 25 May https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/preliminary-notes-on-inequality-andurbanism/ Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Krysan M, Crowder K (2017) Cycle of segregation: social processes and residential stratification. Russell Sage Foundation, New York Manning A (2004) We can work it out: the impact of technological change on the demand for low-skill workers. Scottish J Polit Econ 51:581–608 Markusen A, Schrock G (2006) The artistic dividend: urban artistic specialisation and economic development implications. Urban Studies 43:1661–1686 Martin R, Florida R, Pogue M et al (2015) Creativity, clusters and the competitive advantage of cities. Compet Rev 25:482–496 McLean HE (2014) Cracks in the creative city: the contradictions of community arts practice. Int J Urban Reg Res 38:2156–2173 Mellander C, Florida R (2006) The creative class or human capital? CESIS Electronic Working Paper Series, 79 Mellander C, Florida R, Stolarick K (2011) Here to stay—the effects of community satisfaction on the decision to stay. Spat Econ Anal 6:5–24 Mirowsky J, Ross CE (2003) Social causes of psychological distress. Transaction Publishers, Piscataway Molesworth M, Scullion R, Nixon E (2010) The marketisation of higher education. Routledge Mould O (2015) Urban subversion and the creative city. Routledge, London Nathan M, Overman H (2020) Will coronavirus cause a big city exodus? Environ Plann B: Urban Anal City Sci 47:1537–1542

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Nguyen LH, Drew DA, Graham MS et al (2020) Risk of COVID-19 among front-line health-care workers and the general community: a prospective cohort study. The Lancet Public Health 5: e475–e483 Novy J, Colomb C (2013) Struggling for the right to the (creative) city in Berlin and Hamburg: new urban social movements, new ‘spaces of hope’? Int J Urban Reg Res 37:1816–1838 Piketty T (2014) Capital in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Plato (1973) The republic and other works. Anchor Books, New York Prevost L (2007) Now arriving: reverse commuters. New York Times (Online) 12 Aug https:// www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/realestate/12wczo.html Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Proud A (2014) ‘Cool’ London is dead, and the rich kids are to blame. Telegraph (Online) 7 April. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10744997/Cool-London-is-dead-and-the-richkids-are-to-blame.html Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Ross CE, Mirowsky J (1992) Households, employment, and the sense of control. Soc Psychol Q 55(3):217–235 Sharifi A, Khavarian-Garmsir AR (2020) The COVID-19 pandemic: impacts on cities and major lessons for urban planning, design, and management. Sci Tot Environ 749(20):142391 https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142391 Sharkey P (2013) Stuck in place: urban neighborhoods and the end of progress toward racial equality. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Shuit DP (2000) ‘New economy’ puts commuting paths in reverse. Los Angeles Times (Online) 9 April https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-apr-09-mn-17642-story.html Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Stiglitz JE (2015) The great divide: unequal societies and what we can do about them. Norton, New York Turner RJ, Noh S (1983) Class and psychological vulnerability among women: the significance of social support and personal control. J Health Soc Behav 24(1):2–15 Wheaton B (1983) Stress, personal coping resources, and psychiatric symptoms: an investigation of interactive models. J Health Soc Behav 24(3):208–229

Chapter 5

Raising Talent: Higher Education and Uneven Career Outcomes

Abstract The chapter explores the connection between higher education and creative talent, focusing specifically on creative graduates. It explores how graduates that completed a creative degree course do not enjoy the same benefits of higher human capital experienced by other graduates. This is discussed in connection with different patterns of employment (full time versus part time) but also in relation to different career patterns and job security experienced by creative graduates in different sub-sectors of creative industries. It also considers the value of creative degrees beyond the creative industries and their potential contribution to other sectors of society and the economy. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the policy implications of the data presented, specifically for the higher education sector.

5.1

Introduction

As discussed in the introduction of this book, the attention paid by governments and policy-makers towards the role played by talent has grown tremendously in the last two decades. In this chapter, we focus more specifically on the interconnection between talent and the creative economy, as explained in Chap. 2, and consider how it connects to both the creative and cultural industries (CCIs) and their workforce. This has been a major area of engagement for academics and policy-makers in the context of the UK (Gross 2020; Mateos-Garcia and Bakhshi 2016) which is the focus of this chapter. A key consequence of this growth is the proliferation and expansion of arts-based academic degrees, with creative arts and design seeing an increase of 10.5% in student numbers between 2007–08 and 2016–17 and with academic staff across design, creative and performing arts growing 51.5% over the same period (Universities UK 2018) While the expansion of students and courses brings in a fresh supply of talent to the creative economy, and beyond, the growth of employment opportunities across the creative sector is less steady and positive only for a few of the creative sectors (DCMS 2018). The general literature on creative and cultural work already points out how such © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_5

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oversupply leads to more job instability (Popović and Ratković 2013). Potential mismatch between supply and demand calls for further discussion and exploration. In this chapter, we reflect on data and learning from an extensive investigation into the career outcomes of creative graduates (defined below) across a range of papers and contributions from critical studies on artistic labour markets (Abbing 2002; Menger 1999) to mappings of the creative economy (NESTA 2008). However, the main data is drawn from Comunian et al. (2011) and Abreu et al. (2011) to exemplify the issues and dynamics that talent can experience at the early stages of development. In discussing this research, we refer readers back to the original work for methodological discussions. In this chapter, we instead explore the diverse career paths of creative graduates to highlight where they work and what kind of livelihoods they have. We also consider more broadly how their work relates to the creative sector and beyond. We focus on key findings and the questions that still need to be answered to fully understand the challenges that talent faces and why they interconnect with specific issues in human capital theory (Becker 1964; Schultz 1961; Dineen and Collins 2005; Araya 2010). While based on UK data, we believe the discussion is also relevant to other international contexts with both established and emerging creative economies.

5.2

Studying Creative Graduates: Definitions and Articulations

Defining the creative economy is particularly important as it frames occupational definitions in relation to graduate supply and demand. However, what is intended by “creative economy” is still very much open to debate. In the UK, the main focus of the academic research has been the so-called creative industries as defined by DCMS (2001) and corresponding occupations (DCMS 2018). Here, following an extensive range of contributions and debates, we focus on talent as creative human capital (Comunian and England 2018) concentrating specifically on graduates who are at the intersection between the creative industries (and their occupations) and human capital, i.e. graduates who obtained a degree in a creative subjects (creative arts, performing arts, design, mass communications, multimedia, software design and engineering, music recording and technology, architecture and landscape design) as defined by Comunian et al. (2011). As they combine both creativity and human capital, their role in contributing to the local economy should be almost unanimously accepted by both the advocates of the creative class theory (Florida 2002) and the human capital theory. Therefore, here we highlight the connection between graduate supply and demand with the broader terminology adopted in the literature and as discussed in more detail earlier in Chap. 2. However, within this literature we are also very aware that, as Higgs et al. (2008) have shown, occupations which characterise the creative industries can now often be embedded in other sectors of the economy; therefore, creative occupations

5.2 Studying Creative Graduates: Definitions and Articulations

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represent both occupations in the creative industries and creative occupations in other industries. Cunningham et al. (2004) highlight a general shortcoming of much of the creativity literature, suggesting that research on creative careers tends to be limited to careers within the creative industries, whereas the contribution of creative work in other sectors such as financial services, tourism and health is not captured or investigated. Therefore, a major advantage of our focus on the creative graduate as the unit of analysis is that it assesses the career opportunities and economic contribution of creative occupations both within and outside of the core creative sector. The main focus is therefore to analyse how creative graduates, who are both creative and highly educated, contribute to the creative economy through their “creative occupation”. It is also important to note how creative graduates are captured in educational data. The analyses presented here use Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) data sets on different student cohorts1 which covers their time of study2 as well as the six-month period after graduation3 and three years after graduation.4 In general, creative graduates are classified as students in creative arts and design subjects, creative media subjects and other creative subjects: mainly those linked to technology-based creative subjects and architecture (Comunian et al. 2011).5

5.3

Creative Labour Demand, Supply and Mismatch: Where Creative Graduates Work

The cohort data of students who graduated in 2004–2005, used by Comunian et al. (2011), shows that students obtaining a degree in a creative subject (as defined above) account for around 12% of all graduates in the UK for that year. While the large majority of non-creative graduates (92.80%) is employed in non-creative industries as expected, less than half of the creative graduates (37.6%) find a job in the creative industries or in a creative occupation outside the creative industries. If we then look at the total number of creative occupations taken by creative graduates versus non-creative graduates, we notice that around 56% of the jobs are taken by non-creative graduates. The differences across sectors are quite important (Table 5.1). Overall, only 37.60% of creative graduates enter creative occupations. This has consequences for their job satisfaction and salary as discussed by both Comunian et al. (2010) and Abreu et al. (2011). However, there are major differences across subjects: architecture students find a creative occupation in 81.03% of cases, and some subject fields perform better than the average of the group, namely design (40.19%) and advertising (42.81%). However, some sub-disciplines perform very poorly, namely fine arts (22.60%), craft (24.71%) and music (29%). While the professional structure of architecture facilitates the employment of graduates in the creative field, the unstructured nature of career in fine arts, craft and music—where graduates need to freelance and build a portfolio of work (McAuley and Fillis 2005; Jones

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Table 5.1 Distribution of graduates entering creative occupations and non-creative occupations across sub-discipline cohort 2004/2005 Subject groups Non-creatives

Non-creative occupations

190,607 92.80% Creatives 19,037 62.40% Advertising 338 57.19% Architecture 376 18.97% Crafts 128 75.29% Design 4,873 59.81% Film and TV 3,293 64.68% Fine art 2,746 77.40% Music 1,932 71.00% Performing arts 2,346 67.65% Technology 1,354 66.18% Writing and publishing 1,651 60.08% Total 209,644 88.89% Table adapted from Comunian et al. (2011, p. 300)

Creative occupations 14,724 7.20% 11,476 37.60% 253 42.81% 1,606 81.03% 42 24.71% 3,275 40.19% 1,798 35.32% 802 22.60% 789 29.00% 1,122 32.35% 692 33.82% 1,097 39.92% 26,200 11.11%

1996; Kirschbaum 2007; England 2020)—seems to emerge as an obstacle in entering creative occupations.

5.4

Long- and Short-Term Perspectives on Creative Graduates’ Employment

The literature widely acknowledges that in the general workforce, artists and “creatives” face “higher rates of unemployment and several forms of constrained underemployment” (Menger 1999: 545). Referring to the struggle faced by artists in the labour market, Nemko (2006) goes as far as saying that artistic careers are

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“the world’s best hobbies but the worst careers”. This reflects Throsby’s (1994) work preference model which highlights the preference of artists towards creative work even when they get higher wages from non-creative work. These dynamics also need to be considered from a long-term perspective. In his book “Why artists are poor?”, Abbing’s (2002) main observations are that when dealing with artists one should look at the long-term rather than short-term monetary outcome, that is, lifetime earnings rather than salaries. It is therefore important to take into account the fact that creative careers follow a less conventional pattern which requires a longer investment over time to be successful. Similarly, Alper and Wassall (2006) put forward the importance of considering artists as “risk-takers” in their career choices trying to maximise their opportunities and earnings in the long term. However, they point out that the return on investment in education is low and that it tends not to significantly increase their artistic earnings, although it does have a positive effect on their non-artistic earnings (Alper and Wassall 2006). It is also highlighted in the literature that creative graduates sometimes have to “invent” their own career, build a “portfolio” and establish their name before a monetary reward follows. Furthermore, reputation is considered key in creative careers (Zafirau 2008), and reputation building in practice often requires time. HESA data (LDLHE) allows us to introduce a longer-term perspective which observes salaries six months and three and a half years after graduation in the career development path of creative graduates. From this, we can consider whether a salary gap between creative and non-creative graduates represents mainly a short-term, temporary problem for creative graduates which becomes less significant as graduates build up their portfolios (Blackwell and Harvey 1999; Ekinsmyth 2002) or if it is actually a more persistent phenomenon which requires a longer period of adjustment. As Table 5.2 shows, only about one-third (33.71%) of creative graduates find a job in a creative occupation six months after graduation, while the large majority (66.29%) enter non-creative occupations. The situation improves slightly three years later, but not as much as one might expect (38.67%). Table 5.3 shows the employment circumstances of creative and non-creative graduates six months and three and a half years after graduation. What is evident is that creative graduates are less likely to be in full-time jobs; less than half are in full-time jobs six months after graduating. Three years later, there is a substantial improvement, with about two-thirds (66.7%) being in full-time employment,

Table 5.2 Graduates in creative and non-creative occupations, by creative and non-creative, after 6 months and 3½ years (percentages)

Occupation

Non-creative 6 months 3½ years

Creative 6 months

3½ years

Non-creative 93.23 90.81 66.29 61.33 Creative 6.77 9.19 33.71 38.67 Data from cohort 2002/2003 from Abreu et al. (2011: 302)

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Table 5.3 Employment circumstances for creative and non-creative graduates, after 6 months and 3½ years (percentages) Employment circumstance

Non-creative 6 months

3½ years

Full-time paid work 62.92 77.02 Part-time paid work 10.16 6.91 Self-employed/freelance 1.64 3.16 Voluntary/unpaid work 0.83 0.32 Further study 3.38 6.87 Unemployed 5.14 2.11 Not looking for work 1.88 2.14 Other 14.05 1.48 Data from cohort 2002/2003 from Abreu et al. (2011: 302)

Creative 6 months

3½ years

49.98 15.62 7.00 0.69 3.44 8.75 2.76 11.76

66.70 9.27 10.73 0.59 4.64 3.99 2.56 1.51

although this figure is noticeably lower than the corresponding figure for non-creatives (77.02%). This result is particularly worrying given Abbing’s (2002) hypothesis that artistic-type individuals believe they are “unfit for normal jobs”, which in turn means that if they cannot find a job in the creative sector (which they see as a “sanctuary”), they end up “working in poorly paid non-art jobs” (ibid, p. 115). The crucial point in this hypothesis here is that this self-belief, which might not necessarily be true, “goes a long way toward explaining their acceptance for low incomes” (ibid, p. 116). In other words, this is a case of negative self-selection, where artists without a creative job self-select themselves into the worst and lowest remunerated jobs in the non-creative sector. However, other authors highlight that this could be because such low-paid service jobs offer artists the opportunity to define their creative position and aesthetic value in society (Lloyd 2002; Zukin 1995). This seems to be confirmed by the mean and median salaries for creative and non-creative graduates in creative and non-creative occupations both six months and three and a half years after graduation. Creative graduates in non-creative occupations are the worst-off in both the short and medium terms. Six months after graduation, their average salary is £14,114 (with an even lower median of £13,000). Creatives in creative occupations do slightly better with an average of £15,149 (the median is £16,000 which is substantially higher than £13,000). However, in the longer term, creatives in non-creative occupations, though still performing worse than the other categories, seem to catch up with the other groups, especially creatives in creative occupations, with percentage increase of 23% in mean salary (Abreu et al. 2011). Non-creative graduates start from a better position six months after graduation irrespective of the sector they enter, and they are still on a much higher salary three and a half years after graduation, especially in non-creative occupations. The salary gap between non-creative and creative graduates is not just a short-term phenomenon. Three and a half years after graduation, non-creative graduates’ average salaries are still markedly higher than creative graduates’

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irrespective of the sector entered, with the gap of over 25% in non-creative occupations and around 18% in creative occupations.

5.5

Key Dynamics Across Different Creative Careers and Beyond the Creative Economy

While it can be argued that some of these trends are known, looking across different sub-disciplines is important to contextualise our knowledge in relation to the range of sectors covered by the creative occupations and industries. Therefore, it is possible to ask whether all creative graduates are more likely to be unemployed than other graduates. This is clearly not the case. For example, Comunian et al.’s (2011) analysis of the 2004/2005 cohort shows that graduates from courses in advertising, writing and publishing and architecture are in fact outperforming the general non-creative graduate group. They are in full-time employment in 65.9%, 65.2% and 59.2% of the cases compared with 57.4% of the non-creative graduates and 53% of the creative graduates overall in the period of 6 months after graduation. Furthermore, in the case of graduates in advertising and architecture, part-time work is also very low (lower than the non-creative graduate group). However, part-time work is very high for graduates in craft and fine arts (respectively 17.3% and 13.7% against the 10.5% of the overall creative graduate group). Comunian et al. (2011) also reveal that voluntary and unpaid work is higher for advertising and fine arts but is otherwise quite consistent across the group (although less common in crafts and architecture). Interestingly, work and study are very high in architecture, due to the specific career structure of the field, while enrolling in further study only is very high in the crafts and music disciplines (respectively 18.47% and 22.01%). Unemployment is very unevenly represented across the sub-disciplines. It is high for film and television, creative technologies and design and fine arts graduates, and it is very low (lower or comparable to the general non-creative graduate average) for architecture, craft and music students. The difference in opportunities to access creative occupations appears to reflect quite strongly on the salary levels experienced across sub-disciplines (see Table 5.4). Overall, architecture and creative technology graduates experience higher salaries (respectively with means of £18,000 and £17,000 a year against a mean of £15,000 a year for the overall creative category). At the lower end of the scale, craft, performing arts and film and television students earn lower salaries (earning, respectively, a mean salary of £11,000, £14,000 and £14,000 a year). However, interesting differences emerge when we consider if entering a creative or non-creative occupation has economic advantages or disadvantages. For most disciplines, entering a creative occupation has economic benefits (an increased income in the region of £1,000–£2,000 a year). Nonetheless, for other sub-disciplines there are little differences, or even worse entering a creative occupation means a lower salary. In particular, if we look at fine art and music

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Table 5.4 Mean (and median) salary across creative disciplines in creative and non-creative occupations Subject Non-creatives

Salary mean and (median) Non-creative occupation

20,963 19,000 Creatives 15,782 15,000 Advertising 17,293 15,000 Architecture 18,817 17,000 Crafts 11,000 11,000 Design 15,163 15,000 Film and TV 14,449 13,000 Fine art 16,077 17,000 Music 16,484 16,000 Performing arts 14,886 14,000 Technology 17,638 16,000 Writing and publishing 17,358 16,000 Totals 20,581 19,000 Data from Comunian et al. (2011: 301)

Creative occupations

All (rows)

21,413 19,000 16,938 16,000 17,072 17,000 19,218 18,000 12,614 12,000 16,289 15,000 15,997 15,000 13,761 13,000 15,628 15,000 14,978 15,000 20,162 19,000 17,717 16,000 19,734 18,000

20,995 19,000 16,210 15,000 17,182 16,000 19,138 18,000 11,217 11,000 15,610 15,000 15,028 14,000 15,739 16,000 16,249 16,000 14,912 14,000 18,547 17,000 17,498 16,000 20,490

graduates, the difference between a non-creative and a creative occupational salary is, respectively, £4,000 and £1,000 less. This might be explained by the unstable, unstructured career opportunities offered in the fine art and music sector (with less stability and more part-time work), where the same degree and knowledge applied in a different (non-creative) sector might be rewarded more generally as a higher level of education (independent from the field of study), as highlighted by Alper and Wassall (2006). It also seems to suggest that the problem is not in the skills and human capital value of these students (especially for music students who are strongly represented at Russell group universities6); rather, it is the sector that does not guarantee possible economic rewards.

5.6 The Value of Creative Education Beyond the Creative Industries

5.6

65

The Value of Creative Education Beyond the Creative Industries

The weak performance of creative graduates in creative and non-occupations highlights a lack of recognition of this kind of education and skills within the broader creative economy. In other research, we specifically explored the performance of digital graduates7 versus creative arts graduates8 and their connection with the creative economy. Table 5.5 shows the percentage of digital and creative arts graduates who are in creative jobs, and it also classifies the “type” of creative job they are in according to NESTA (2008), using the “Trident Model”, in three categories: • Specialised—in a creative occupation within the creative industries • Supportive—in a non-creative occupation within the creative industries • Embedded—in a creative occupation outside the creative industries Overall, 58% of graduates employed in the creative sector are from degrees that are neither creative nor linked to digital technology (in particular, 30% are from humanities; see also Comunian et al. 2014). However, there are clear differences between the creative sub-sectors. Digital technology graduates make up 67% of graduates employed in the software sector, although their skills also seem to be of some value in the design sector (9.2%) and in the film, TV, radio and photography sector (10.2%). As expected, the design and music sectors mainly employ creative arts graduates (70% and 50%, respectively). The rest of the creative sub-sectors employ the majority of their graduates from “other” degrees (e.g. 57% in the libraries, museums and art gallery sector are humanities students).

Table 5.5 Sector distribution and creative job type by subject studied Sector (%) Creative sector Science, technology and engineering Health and social welfare Education Financial, property and business Public administration Other Type of creative job within creative jobs (%) Specialist Supportive Embedded Data from Comunian et al. (2015a: 351)

Digital technology

Creative arts

Other

36.35 19.40 3.13 8.97 11.85 4.21 16.10

35.50 3.70 4.11 20.37 8.07 2.29 25.96

9.10 9.35 25.57 20.50 15.07 5.74 14.67

32.83 14.04 53.13

47.48 19.47 33.05

32.49 29.22 38.29

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What is worth noticing is that in some sub-sectors of the creative economy the skills sought after by employers are very specialised and require a specific degree. In others, more general and transferrable skills are valued, in some cases more than specialised skills, making the market more open to competition from graduates from other disciplines (and institutions). This may have some bearing on the differing labour market outcomes experienced by graduates from different degrees. Furthermore, there has been a broader policy argument for innovation and new technologies to be at the core of economic growth in the creative industries and for embedding these skills and technologies in different sub-sectors across the creative industries to make them more resilient (NESTA 2010), which our data seems to contradict. However, it is also true that in a sector like the creative industries— characterised by small and medium-size enterprises (NESTA 2008)—collaboration across sectors may take place and be more advantageous than embedding certain professionals across diverse sectors. The opportunity to work with innovative technologies might therefore be based on collaboration and networking rather than embedded human capital as our data shows. Comunian et al. (2015) attempt to estimate forms of “convergence” and “knowledge spillover/crossovers” by looking at the sector distribution of graduate creative jobs, with a further breakdown of the type of creative degree studied (Table 5.5). This highlights that the value created by creative education does not simply end with their contribution to the core creative economy. Research into the value that creativity generates in other sectors of the wider economy is very limited, but there is evidence suggesting that crossovers and collaboration lead to innovation in the wider economy (NESTA 2007, 2013a). In general, digital technology (36.35%) and creative arts graduates (35.5%) are more likely to enter the creative sector than other sectors, as well as being more likely to enter the creative sector compared to other graduates (9.10%). Even so, only a third of digital technology and creative arts graduates end up in the creative sector, with almost 20% of digital technology students entering the science, engineering and technology industries. It is worth also noticing the importance of employment in the education sector for creative arts graduates (20%), compared to digital technology students (9%). Among the graduates entering creative jobs, digital technology graduates are the most concentrated; 77% go into the software, electronic games and publishing sector. This seems to point to a very good-fit between the topic studied at university and the occupation entered, linked to the high level of specialisation of these graduates, although it should also be mentioned that digital work—for its nature and size—often tends to be outsourced rather than incorporated in the functions of other sectors. In terms of the “type” of creative job (i.e. specialist, support or embedded), graduates from different subjects not only enter different creative sub-sectors but also play different roles. For example, 53% of digital technology students are embedded, and 33% are in specialist roles, while only 14% are in support roles. This seems to highlight the fact that other sectors are able to embed digital technology graduates, offering them creative occupations outside of the creative industries. It also suggests recognition of the value and skills of digital graduates in

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the broader economy (e.g. a Web designer in a manufacturing industry). However, the fact that digital technology graduates are less likely to be in specialised positions seems to highlight a difficulty in entering core creative occupations within the creative industries, which is comparable to the position occupied by the general “other” group. These non-creative graduates, with the exception of those from humanities (Comunian et al. 2014), tend to play a bigger support role than creative graduates and are less likely to be in specialist roles.

5.7

Policy Challenges and Conclusions

The difficulties encountered by creative graduates in the job market can be seen in relation to both the salary level and type of job offered to them. The analyses presented here are in line with some more qualitative studies on the same subject (Menger 1999; McRobbie 2002; Oakley et al. 2008) and the general literature on artists and creatives’ career prospects (Bain 2005; Baines 1999; Baines and Robson 2001; Blair 2001; Taylor and Littleton 2008). However, when contrasted with the policy emphasis on creative industries and creative work in the recent regional economic development literature and policy (both in UK and internationally), they do raise a question: if creatives are so important for economic growth (The Work Foundation 2008; UNDP and UNESCO 2013; NESTA 2013b), why are they not rewarded by the labour market? Several possible challenges and policy implications are discussed here. The role of higher education and oversupply. In the UK, there has been an expansion in creative courses with higher education (Universities UK 2018), although this expansion appears to be led by the demand and attractiveness of these courses to students, rather than by a growth in jobs and employment opportunities. The creative economy discourse also seems to have signalled creative education as an attractive career perspective to students without critically engaging with the sector job market and availability of real opportunities. Policy, especially under New Labour, played a key role in making the sector attractive and appealing both to prospective students and to higher education institutions aiming to expand their courses. Many universities have expanded their offer in these fields without questioning the real opportunities available to creative graduates (Heartfield 2005). The Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA 2009) highlights the steady growth of creative subject areas. In relation to the period discussed in the chapter, between 2003/2004 and 2007/2008 architecture, building and planning showed the highest growth of 34.2%, creative arts and design increased by 14.2% and mass communication and documentation increased by 7.3%, with an overall growth across all subjects of 4.8%. New Labour cultural policy promoted the creative industries and creative work as a whole, but in fact the data shows that only a few of these sectors were able to deliver sustainable career prospects and a healthy job market for students graduating from creative disciplines. Buckingham and Jones (2010) point out “there is a danger that “creativity” and “culture” will come to be seen as magic

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ingredients that will automatically transform education”. The data presented here suggests that the creative skills of graduates in creative disciplines are not fully valued and appreciated in the job market (in both creative and non-creative occupations) and that the hype surrounding the creative industries has created an “economic bubble” that has further expanded the provision of those skills without real corresponding opportunities. Lower economic rewards are then linked back to the issue of oversupply already identified by Towse (2001) and Abbing (2002). The rhetoric of the “creative industries” or “creative economy” has blurred the boundaries of diverse sectors with very different career patterns and rewards. While we observe that for certain creative graduates, employment patterns and salary are very close to the patterns of the overall graduate group in the UK, for others the situation is more extreme. In particular, the weak earning conditions of craft, performing arts, film and television and fine arts graduates are exposed. Linked to these lower economic rewards is the lack of job stability offered by these sectors, compared to the relatively more stable employment pattern available to advertising, architecture and writing and publishing students. This also reflects the geography of opportunities. While the New Labour cultural policy tried to address the disparity of infrastructure and opportunities available across the UK regions, opportunities for careers in creative occupations are strongly concentrated in London and the South East (Clifton 2008). While the expansion of the higher education sector and of new higher education institutions specifically catering for creative subjects might be part of a long-term strategy of attraction and retention (Ashton and Comunian 2019), it seems to have very little chance of success when job opportunities are still highly concentrated in a few key urban areas as discussed earlier (Comunian and Faggian 2014; Faggian et al. 2014; Comunian and Jewell 2018; Comunian et al. 2016b; England and Comunian 2016). Overall, this means that in addition to looking at oversupply, policy should look more carefully at certain sectors and disciplines of study and consider their connection to geography and ecosystems in order to assess their sustainability and specificity. New opportunities can come from a more integrated approach to creative education, creative employment and higher education knowledge exchange with the creative economy and beyond. If we look beyond the creative industries to gain a broader understanding of the impact of the talent across the creative economy and within the larger knowledge economy, it seems clear than creative graduates are undervalued in the labour market, especially when they do not enter a creative occupation. That their human capital may be underdeveloped and/or their skills too specific to be of use in other sectors raises questions about the value of the education they receive in relation to demands of the overall economy. Specifically, two difficulties emerge: firstly, a difficulty of the graduates themselves in articulating the value of their skills and training, possibly because during their education they have not been exposed to or asked to think about how their knowledge and skills could apply more broadly than to a specific set of careers and occupations (Comunian and Brook 2019), and secondly, a difficulty for the economy to place a value (and therefore offer a reasonable salary) on the contribution that creativity and artistic skills can add to a variety of sectors, not just the creative economy. It can

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also be argued that the excessive emphasis of governments on the creative and cultural industries has potentially secluded creativity to a narrow area of economic potential rather than supporting a broader understanding of the creative dimension of each economic activity (Hartley 2004; Mato 2009; Brook et al. 2020). This is partially confirmed by the data on digital graduates (Comunian et al. 2015a, 2016a), because although there has been great emphasis on the role of digital technologies in cultural and creative industries and their convergence (Deuze 2007), there is little evidence of the embedding of these skills in the broader cultural and creative industries. A new emphasis on higher education institutions in considering the value of creative education to the broader society, rather than a few sectors of the economy, needs to be embraced (Comunian and Gilmore 2015, 2016); avoiding silos and narrowly defined artistic career pathways might help creative graduates to position themselves more successfully within the wider economy. Notes 1. Within these data sets, the subjects studied by students are classified via 4-digit JACS code. For more information on the Joint Academic Coding System (or JACS), see http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view &id=158&Itemid=233. 2. The students in higher education institutions data set provide information on personal characteristics such as age, gender and ethnicity; course characteristics including the subject studied at the 4-digit JACS code; the mode of study such as full time or part time; the institution attended; the final grade achieved for finalists; and the location of parental domicile at the unit postcode level. Data is gathered via the UK higher education institutions. Creative graduates are comprised of students studying: creative arts and design subjects (all JACS codes starting with W), creative media graduates (all JACS codes starting with P) and other creative graduates: subjects mainly linked to technologies-based creative subjects and architecture (Comunian et al. 2011). 3. The Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) is a survey sent to all UK-domiciled finalists to gather information on graduate employment six months after graduation. It contains information on the graduate’s employment circumstances, salary level, the sectoral code of their employer (SIC code), the occupation code of their job (SOC code) and the location of employment. 4. The Longitudinal Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (LDLHE) data set is a more detailed questionnaire sent to a sample of graduates who responded to the previous DLHE survey, approximately 3 years after the original survey. LDLHE data is weighted using sampling weights provided by HESA to adjust for the over-sampling of these subgroups. 5. In other papers (Comunian et al. 2011), we differentiate graduates in the creative subgroup based on their field of study and expertise. We used the same JACS codes and structured them in 9 creative sub-categories: advertising, architecture, crafts, design, film and television, fine art, music, performing arts, technology.

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6. The “Russell group” is a membership organisation compromising the 24 top research-intensive universities in UK who receive the majority of research grant and contract income. The Russell group universities are also generally considered to be more prestigious. 7. Digital Technology JACS codes include: G4 computer science (includes sub-disciplines such as computer architectures and operating systems; networks and communications; human–computer interaction; and multimedia computing science); G5 information science and G6 software engineering (includes sub-disciplines such as software design and programming); G7 artificial intelligence; G92 other computer science; and H6 electronic and electrical engineering (with the exception of H673 bioengineering, H68 optoelectronic engineering and H69 electronic and electrical engineering not classified elsewhere); J52 printing (includes sub-disciplines like offset lithography, photo-lithography, reprographic techniques, screen process printing); and J93 technology (includes: audio technology and music recording). 8. Creative Arts and Design JACS codes include: W1 fine art; W2 design studies; W3 music; W4 drama; W5 dance; W6 cinematics and photography; W7 crafts; W8 imaginative writing; and W9 others in creative arts and design.

References Abbing H (2002) Why are artists poor? The exceptional economy of the arts. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam Abreu M, Faggian A, Comunian R et al (2011) “Life is short, art is long”: the persistent wage gap between Bohemian and non-Bohemian graduates. Ann Reg Sci 49(2):305–321. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s00168-010-0422-4 Alper NO, Wassall GH (2006) Artists’ careers and their labor markets. In: Ginsburgh V and Throsby D. (eds) Handbook of the economics of art and culture. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 813–864 Araya D (2010) Educational policy in the creative economy. In: Araya D, Peters MA (eds) Education in the creative economy: knowledge and learning in the age of innovation. Peter Lang, New York, pp.3–28 Ashton D, Comunian R (2019) Universities as creative hubs: modes and practices in the UK context. In: Gill R, Pratt AC, Tarek E (eds) Creative hubs in question. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp 359–379 Bain A (2005) Constructing an artistic identity. Work Employ Soc 19(1):25–46 Baines S (1999) Servicing the media: freelancing, teleworking and ‘enterprising careers’. New Technol Work Employ 14(1):18–31 Baines S, Robson L (2001) Being self-employed or being enterprising? The case of creative work for the media industries. J Small Bus Enterp Dev 8(4):349–362 Becker GS (1964) Human capital: a theoretical and empirical analysis, with special reference to education. University of Chicago Press, Chicago Blackwell A, Harvey L (1999) Destinations and reflections: careers of british art, craft and design graduates. University of Central England, Birmingham Blair H (2001) ‘You’re only as good as your last job’: the Labour process and labour market in the British film industry. Work Employ Soc 15(1):149–169

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England L, Comunian R (2016) Support or competition? Assessing the role of HEIs in professional networks and local creative communities: the case of glass-making in Sunderland. In Comunian R, Gilmore A (eds) Higher Education and the Creative Economy: Beyond the Campus, pp. 177–195 Faggian A, Comunian R, Li QC (2014) Interregional migration of human creative capital: the case of “Bohemian graduates”. Geoforum, 55:33–42 Florida R (2002) The rise of the creative class: and how it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. Hazard Press Publishers Gross J (2020) The birth of the creative industries revisited: an oral history of the 1998 DCMS mapping document. King’s College London, London https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/ resources/reports/the-birth-of-the-creative-industries-revisited.pdf Accessed 1 Dec 2020 Hartley J (2004) The ‘value chain of meaning’ and the new economy. Int J Cult Stud 7(1):129–141 Heartfield J (2005) The creativity gap (Online). http://www.heartfield.org/creativity_gap.pdf Accessed 14 Dec 2020 Higgs P, Cunningham S, Bakhshi H (2008) Beyond the creative industries: mapping the creative economy in the United Kingdom. NESTA, London Higher Education Statistical Agency (HESA) (2009) Press release 141-science and medicine studies see five year growth. HESA, London Jones C (1996) Careers in project networks: the case of film industry. In: Arthur MB, Rousseau DM (eds) The boundaryless career: a new employment principle for a new organisational era. Oxford University Press, New York: 58:75 Kirschbaum C (2007) Careers in the right beat: US jazz musician’ typical and non-typical trajectories. Career Dev Int 12(2):187–201 Lloyd R (2002) Neo–bohemia: art and neighborhood redevelopment in Chicago. J Urban Aff 24 (5):517–532 Mateos-Garcia J, Bakhshi H (2016) The geography of creativity in the UK. NESTA, London Mato D (2009) All industries are cultural. Cult Stud 23(1):70–87 McAuley A, Fillis I (2005) Careers and lifestyles of craft makers in the 21st century. Cult Trends 14(2):139–156 McRobbie A (2002) Clubs to companies: notes on the decline of political culture in speeded up creative worlds. Cult Stud 16(4):516–531 Menger PM (1999) Artistic labor markets and careers. Annu Rev Sociol 25:541–574 Nemko M (2006) Poor careers for 2006, US News, 01/05/2006. Accessed 15 Jan 2010 NESTA (2007) How linked are the UK’s creative industries to the wider economy? An input-output analysis. NESTA, London NESTA (2008) Beyond the creative industries: mapping the creative economy in the United Kingdom. NESTA, London NESTA (2010) Culture of innovation. NESTA, London NESTA (2013a) Creative credits: a randomized controlled industrial policy experiment. NESTA, London NESTA (2013b) A manifesto for the creative economy. NESTA, London Oakley K, Sperry B, Pratt AC (2008) The art of innovation: how fine arts graduates contribute to innovation. NESTA, London Popović M, Ratković K (2013) Oversupply of labor and other peculiarities of arts labor market. Theor Pract Res Econ Fields (TPREF) 2(8):203–228 Schultz TW (1961) Investment in human capital. Am Econ Rev 51(1):1–17 Taylor S, Littleton K (2008) Art work or money: conflicts in the construction of a creative identity. Sociol Rev 56(2):275–292 The Work Foundation (2008) Staying ahead: the economic performance of the UK’s creative industries. The Work Foundation, London Throsby D (1994) The production and consumption of the arts: a view of cultural economics. J Econom Liter 32(1):1–29 Towse R (2001) Partly for the money: rewards and incentives to artists. Kyklos 54(2/3):473–490

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Chapter 6

Exposing Talent: Precarity and Moments of Crisis

Abstract The chapter exposes the precarious nature of creative and cultural work. It focuses on the literature that analyses talent narrowly in connection with the creative economy and the creative industries. It reflects, historically, on the growth of academic research on creative and cultural work and precarity. In particular, it explores how the Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on workers and the sector. The chapter acknowledges that early in the pandemic many industry and policy bodies rushed into researching the impact of Covid-19 on the creative and cultural industries (CCIs) and the workers in the sector. It presents a meta-analysis of the survey and research projects that have been undertaken in the UK during the first lockdown period in early 2020. The conclusions highlight common concerns in relation to visible and invisible issues exposed and question whether Covid-19 represents a real time of crisis for the sector or if it has exposed the unsustainable nature of creative talent.

6.1

Introduction

In this chapter, we explore the dynamics of talent in the connection with precarity. Here, rather than adopting the broader definition of talent in connection with human capital or the creative class, we focus more closely on talent within the context of the creative economy and its industries, referred to as creative talent throughout this chapter (see Sect. 2.2.1). The precarious livelihoods and working conditions of talent are widely acknowledged in academic literature (Morgan and Nelligan 2018; de Peuter 2011b) despite being often invisible in the eyes of policy and policy-making. However, Comunian and Conor (2017) have discussed how this precarity seems to be made visible, specifically in moments of crisis and disruption. One such moment is the Covid-19 pandemic, which alongside immediate health and national security impacts (Sohrabi et al. 2020) has created an economic crisis and recession with short- and long-term social (Nicola et al. 2020) as well as economic impacts on local and national economies across the globe (Baldwin and Tomiura 2020; McKibbin and Fernando 2020). Focusing specifically on the context © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_6

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of the UK, we explore the impact—or rather exposure—that Covid-19 has had on the vulnerability of the creative industries (CIs) and their workers. In the UK, official records of deaths and affected populations started on the first of March 2020 (Mahase 2020) and both before and after the introduction of restrictive measures (lockdown) and enforced closure of cultural venues in the UK,1 the CIs became the subject of numerous survey and studies (Comunian and England 2020). In this chapter, we critically acknowledge the sudden rush for data and the increased pressure towards charting and evaluating the impact of Covid-19 from a range of public, not-for-profit and other types of sectoral institutions. We reflect on what was (and what was not) researched and how the issues highlighted connect with previous knowledge of inequalities in the CIs (O’Brien et al. 2017; Eikhof 2020) and the precarious nature of its workforce (McRobbie 2016; de Peuter 2011a; Ross 2009). We acknowledge that some CIs sectors have managed a transition online and working from home better than others, or eventually introduced “Covid-secure” practices and testing programmes to allow work to continue, such as in the film and TV industries. For others however, extended and repeated venue closures, cancellations and restrictions on public attendance continue to hinder creative work in significant sectors of the UK creative economy, particularly audience facing cultural sectors—such as performing arts and festivals—where sociality and the interpersonal encounters often integral to their delivery have been undermined (Gross et al. 2021). The limited number of “key workers” within the CIs can however be seen as an advantage from a health perspective compared to other sectors including caring, leisure and other service occupations where precarious work is also common. The chapter first addresses the extensive literature available on talent in the creative economy under three headings: creative labour market dynamics, precarity and finally creative talent in moments of crisis. We then reflect on the knowledge sought (and found) in relation to the impact of Covid-19 on CIs in the UK, including a reflection on the value of the UK context. We offer an insight into the key concerns that research, industry and policy bodies have for CIs and specifically creative talent in the UK, but which were echoed internationally by a range of policy bodies (UNESCO 2020). We specifically make a distinction between what are the immediate visible issues and the more invisible ones that can potentially have more long-term impacts. The chapter concludes by questioning in what ways Covid-19 represents a moment of crisis for the sector or has simply further exposed the unsustainable price of creative talent.

6.2

Understanding Creative Talent: Settings, Downfalls and Moments of Crisis

In researching creative talent (based on the definitions discussed in Chap. 2), we propose to classify the literature and current knowledge around three main themes: firstly, the unavoidable features of CIs labour markets that have been the object of

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study since the 1980s (Caves 2000); secondly, more recent, emerging patterns of neoliberalism and precarisation of work which have spread since 2000 to become cornerstones of the gig economy (Friedman 2014); and lastly, connected with the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) a new rhetoric emerged of talent (and CIs) as “resilient” (Beirne et al. 2017) or capable to recover from periods of crisis (De Propris 2013). Creative Talent Dynamics The landscape of creative talent and their specific labour markets have been studied for decades for their distinctive characteristics. Positioned by many as being somehow “exceptional” (Abbing 2002), their inner workings have fascinated economists for centuries, even more so with the emergence of new structural forms of market-led cultural production in the 1980s and 1990s (Towse 1995) through the 2000s (Alper and Wassall 2006). Caves (2000) summarises some of the principles under which the CIs operate; although some of these might be shared by other industries, they define a specific sector with distinct working conditions. Here, we summarise the principles that have clear connections and implications for creative talent. The “nobody knows principle” reflects on the uncertainty of demand and markets in CIs, which has implications for both who manages these industries and who is employed in them. How risk and uncertainty are addressed (Seidel 2011) connects strongly with working conditions and social securities (discussed later). The subsequent principle that Caves (2000) explores is that of “art for art’s sake” (Bell-Villada 1986). Here, he discussed directly how this impacts talent (rather than the industries per se): “workers care about originality, technical professional skill, harmony, etc. of creative goods and are willing to settle for lower wages” (Caves 2000: 2). The passion and internal rewards derived from work have strong implications for the ways creative workers perform in the labour market (Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2010). In relation to work, the “motley crew” and “time flies” principles acknowledge the time-bound nature of work and innovation in CIs and highlight how each product is a complex interconnection of different skills and skilled individuals. This has managerial implications (Townley et al. 2009) but could also reveal aspects of collective endeavours (Becker 1974) and potentially collaborative work, which could in principle result in collective actions (de Peuter 2014). However, the literature on creative talent has instead discussed this multiplicity of skills and the complexity of project work mainly in relation to the emergence of exclusionary temporary networks (Blair 2001), the fragmentation and casualisation of the jobs available within the sector (Morgan et al. 2013; Merkel 2018) and the need for creative talent to have diverse skillsets (Ibert and Schmidt 2014). Another structural condition that organises workers in relation to their skills is one of the “A list/B list”; “Artists are ranked on their skills, originality, and proficiency […] Small differences in skills and talent may yield huge differences in (financial) success” (Caves 2000: 2). However, these differential economic rewards have huge implications in shaping the life of many hopeful “B list” creatives, including recent graduates, as discussed in Comunian et al. (2010) and in our earlier discussion, who accept living hand to mouth while hoping to one day make it into the “A list”.

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Creative Talent Precarity Many authors highlight that when talking about creative talent, as depicted in job descriptions or in the media and films, there is a common perception that these roles are fashionable and young (Neff et al. 2005); their space and offices are easy-going, open-minded and egalitarian (Gill 2002; Ross 2009), and these “alternative” spaces and their setting in global cities make the perfect environment to offer inspiration and boost creativity (Moore 2005). However, on closer analysis, the same researchers find that this image is very different from the working reality of talent. The limited visibility given in the public domain to the reality of creative work (Comunian and Conor 2017) has been integral to the marketisation of the sector globally. In fact, creative work is unveiled as exclusionary for a range of interconnected reasons: economic, social and spatial. In this chapter, the discussion on the economic dimension is central, but we also recognise that behind the economic struggle there are also barriers connected to gender, ethnicity and social class as well as spatially where talent might be displaced (Bader and Bialluch 2009; Catungal et al. 2009) as we discussed earlier. Here, we engage specifically with the growing precarity of creative talent, but also consider the consequential impact on individuals and their incomes and subsistence. In the last twenty years, the terms “precarious” and “precarity” have become more central in the literature associated with creative work (see, e.g., de Peuter 2011a; Morgan and Nelligan 2018; Neilson and Rossiter 2005; Ross 2009). Performing a systematic literature review2 (SRL) on Scopus (Scopus 2019), academic sources of the interaction between the term (precar* for precarity, precarious) and creative work3 reveal the trend depicted in Fig. 6.1, which shows how this focus starts to emerge in the aftermath of the GFC. Waite (2009) reflects on whether there should be more attention towards the concept of precarity within the geography literature and tries to trace its history and development within the social sciences literature. She reports how in the 1990s, with the expansion of neoliberal and capitalist economies, it is possible to recognise the interconnected changes in labour market conditions and precarity emerging. Waite also poses that the meaning is also still ambivalent and contested: on one side, some authors have simply identified its general connection to modernity (Neilson and Rossiter 2005) and often its origin in neoliberal market conditions (Dörre 2006). Others have attached a call for action and mobilisation to the term, connecting it to social movement and activism: from the real world (Da Costa 2016) to digital (Banks 2010). Furthermore, Waite (2009) also highlights that new precarious working conditions have concerned workers from the two extreme ends of the labour market: at one end low-paid unskilled labourer (such as cleaners, careers, delivery drivers) all now involved in the gig economy (De Stefano 2015); at the other highly skilled workers (DCMS 2016) in the creative economy. Building on Rodgers and Rodgers (1989), we consider how the four dimensions they recognise are strongly connected with current structures of creative talent. The first relates to the uncertainly in the time of employment (short term vs. long term). As mentioned before, the very nature of work in CIs implies that skills can be

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40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020

Fig. 6.1 Number of Scopus documents connecting precarity and creative work over time (2002– 2020)

required for a very limited time during long complex projects and that consequentially short-term contracts (subcontracting and freelancing) are widely used (Cohen 2015). The second element is how creative talent can potentially have control over their work (or not). In other sectors of the economy, the work of unions and collectives mitigates working conditions and wages. However, for creative workers the presence of unions and collectives is significantly reduced—also associated with the fragmented and individualised nature of the work (Coles 2016; Conor 2015)—although there are some exceptions (Simms and Dean 2015). Thirdly, regulatory frameworks for the sector (i.e. laws and directives) that can protect workers from discrimination or provide social safeguards need to be considered. Here, many (Banks and Hesmondhalgh 2009; Comunian and Conor 2017) have demonstrated that while policy has been heavily engaged in promoting and mapping the CIs, very little has been done in policy terms to regulate or protect creative workers. Finally, the last critical aspect is how salaries are connected to employment. Here, Rodgers and Rodgers (1989) evidence that even people on steady contracts can lead precarious lives when contracts do not actually provide a living wage. This is particularly relevant for creative talent—especially at the initial stages of their careers—where the rhetoric of “unpaid internships” or “work as opportunity” is widely spread (Siebert and Wilson 2013)—we discuss this further in the next chapter—and, as already discussed, where recent graduates might have invested in a degree (and taken on debt through the student loan system) but earn the same salary as non-graduates (Comunian et al. 2010). As noted in our discussion on cities, this has strong geographical connotations as these low/no-pay creative jobs often appear to agglomerate in the most expensive capitals of the world. This is highlighted in the case of Berlin, where the majority of artistic

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creative talent now constitute the “middle-class working poor” of the skilled service sector (Krätke 2012: 150). Beyond acknowledging how these different dimensions of precarity are intertwined and reinforce each other within the boundaries of talent, we also want to reflect on the impact this has on their livelihoods. Waite (2009) highlights that while neoliberalism and globalisation have broadly influenced a rise in insecure working conditions (i.e. casual, temporary work, freelancing and zero hours contracts), for individuals this has resulted in new forms of fragmentation and “flexploitation” (Neilson and Rossiter 2005; Morgan et al. 2013) which ultimately affect workers’ livelihoods within and beyond the creative economy (i.e. service, logistics, care and leisure workers). These dynamics have also influenced the ability of CIs sectors to be inclusive and diverse. Many have reported barriers experienced by people entering and working in and CIs in relation to gender (Conor et al. 2015), ethnicity (Malik et al. 2017) and socio-economic class (Brook et al. 2018). The result is that creative work often becomes the realm of the most advantaged groups of society that does not provide enough equal representation (O’Brien et al. 2017; Samdanis and Lee 2019) and creates further processes of exclusion and inequality. If—in spite of these barriers—those with low financial means enter the sector, often their income remains insecure and this leads to the struggle of being able to balance work and paying rent or support a family. For many, the impact is personal and can potentially have repercussions on mental health (Wilkes et al. 2020), parenting (McDowall et al. 2019) or motherhood (Dent 2019), leading to individuals quitting their creative careers (Raising Films 2016). Creative Talent and Resilience Covid-19 is certainly a global crisis—ongoing at the time of writing. The imminent crisis is in relation to health (Sohrabi et al. 2020); however, the underlining economic crisis (McKibbin and Fernando 2020), felt by some more than others (Nicola et al. 2020), is forecast to have an even more long-lasting impact (Fernandes 2020). Often in the literature on crisis and shocks, the term “resilience” is used. Robinson (2010) uses it specifically in relation to studying responses of the arts and cultural sector to the GFC and defines adaptive resilience as “the capacity to remain productive and true to core purpose and identity whilst absorbing disturbance and adapting with integrity in response to changing circumstances” (Robinson 2010: 14). The assumption is that CIs have a flexible attitude and structure and are able to adapt to funding cuts. Despite the positive connotations that seem to be given to the term by Arts Council England and policy-makers, the literature criticises the use of “resilience” as a policy buzzword. This was “one of numerous linguistic devices deployed to make the naturalness of privatization and corresponding public disinvestment basic assumptions of policy making” (Gupta and Gupta 2019: 14). Similarly, Pratt (2017) queries the association between resilience and the creative economy; he argues that the sector was born “resilient” because, even before the GFC, it followed different organisational dynamics using flexible production networks and diverse contracts. However, it is argued that this resilience also shows a range of limitations and does not univocally lead to continuous growth. In fact, Pratt

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(2017: 136) argues “the social and economic costs of constant reinvention are high […and] encourage self-exploitation”, and ultimately the resilience we might witness is in fact “outsourced to flexible or freelance workers who bear the costs and risks of uncertainty”. This finding fits within wider policy and economic reflections on resilience (Filion 2013). During the Fordist period, a solid welfare state provided a defence mechanism against structural changes or economic shocks. However, with the deregulation and weakening of the welfare state in neoliberal economies, these “resilience” buffers have disappeared. In fact, “the coincidence between the rising interest for resilience and the neoliberal transformation of the state and society is not serendipitous. […] Resilience plays a cardinal role in attempts at legitimizing neoliberal policies” (Filion 2013: para. 23 and 24). This is confirmed by De Propris’ (2013) description of how the CIs were able to bounce back in UK following the last economic crisis; in the period 2009–10, self-employment in three groups of occupations (creative occupations in CIs, support workers in CIs and creative occupations in other industries) increased between 4.8 and 7.9%. As De Propris (2013: 27) adds, “the drop in the number of employees in some sectors seems to be mirrored by rises in the number of self-employed people in or outside creative industries”. The idealisation of this “working for yourself” rhetoric is quite pervasive in the CIs with such a high percentage of active freelancers (Taylor 2015; Merkel 2018). However, while self-employment is often presented as a choice linked to independence and self-determination, Taylor (2015: 185) poses that the real narratives are very different, and they reveal “sustaining yourself through difficult circumstances, like unemployment, and coping with inadequate pensions, insufficient earnings and the need to raise the next generation”. So, the resilient comeback of creative talent from the GFC was to work in more unstable and unprotected working conditions than before. Despite self-employment, precarity, freelancing and even entrepreneurship are misread by the established neoliberal policy discourse as resilient behaviours. As Ibert and Schmidt (2014: 20) further explain, resilience pushes individual “adaption and adaptability”, leading to the development of “telescopic identities” and “prismatic identities”. This further pushes creative talent towards having to be able to deal with unpredictable circumstances. In the long run, making a living is only possible through continuously developing new skills or mobility. However, the real reports about the meaning of resilience and adaptability for creative workers are often more negative than policy would like to admit. Beirne et al. (2017) present an account of these personal struggles: […] spaces in which the artists struggled were troubled, compromised and difficult to move through […] These artists and communities were surviving rather than prospering. […], resigned to exploiting gaps and opportunities, with a resilience that was often difficult to sustain and which took them on an emotional roller coaster […] (Beirne et al. 2017: 217).

From this, we can see that even before the Covid-19 crisis the work and lives of creative talent have been shaped by internal dynamics and the laws of its labour market but also extensive pressure from neoliberal and globalisation forces.

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Moreover, the GFC had stretched the level of social insecurity and contractual standards offered, adding a tactical resilience rhetoric that, rather than recognising its impact on the sector, has imposed greater risks and uncertainty on talent. The Covid-19 crisis nevertheless offers an opportunity to understand the critical issues for creative talent which have been further exposed, as well as those which remain invisible but nevertheless pose significant questions about the long-term sustainability of the sector (Wilson et al. 2000; Gross et al. 2021) beyond Covid-19.

6.3

Covid-19: Leaving Talent Exposed in the UK

In this chapter, we focus on the UK as a case study to enable a degree of consistency with respect to the geography and policy context. However, we suggest that the UK context, which has been the context for broader academic research and policy interventions, also represents a broader Global North/Anglo-Saxon perspective and potentially highlights broader dynamics associated with the neoliberal world of creative work that have spread globally (Beck 2014). This specifically concerns how key headlines about growth and economic value have created a disconnect between the overall image of the sector and its reality (Comunian 2009). Finally, as discussed earlier, following the GFC, emphasis has been placed on the strength and resilience of the CIs to “weather” economic crisis (De Propris 2013) and even, as Gordon Brown (then UK Prime Minister) specified, as a means to “pull Britain out of recession” (Tylee 2009). The Economic Impact of Covid-19 on the Creative Industries The Covid-19 crisis has damaged, and in some instances devastated sectors of the economy across the globe (Nicola et al. 2020; McKibbin and Fernando 2020), with the CIs, alongside the tourism sector, hit harder than most (Oxford Economics 2020). The full impact of Covid-19 and the multiple restrictions imposed on the CIs —and what that means for current and new generations of creative talent—are not yet known, although projections calculated from a number of sector surveys indicate: a combined £77bn turnover loss over the course of 2020 compared to 2019 (-31%) and a 122,000 drop in employment among employees (despite the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme—JRS) and a further 287,000 job losses among self-employed workers, compared to 2019 levels. In total, 409,000 CIs jobs are considered at risk (Oxford Economics 2020: 3).

The vulnerability of creative talent in relation to the crisis has been widely acknowledged by CIs organisations and individuals, with reports of devastating loss of income (CIF 2020a; a-n The Artists Information Company 2020) emerging as early as March 2020. A survey by Creativepool (2020) in April 2020 reiterated the dire employment situation for small creative businesses and freelancers in particular and the lack of new employment opportunities: “3 in 4 small businesses will be forced to shut down by September; 50% of creative freelancers won’t survive more

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than 3 months; Half of unemployed creatives have lost their job due to the pandemic; 80% of creative organisations are not currently hiring” (2020, para. 6). Later came announcements of mass redundancies at cultural institutions—mainly theatres —with warnings some will not reopen their doors without significant government (financial) support (Toynbee 2020; Rhys 2020). In London alone, it is estimated that the impact of Covid-19 on the “culture and creative industries together with its supply chain will cost the economy £16.3 bn and put 151,000 jobs at risk” (Local Governament Association 2020: para 3). The Oxford Economics study (2020) reports that 27% of the CIs jobs lost are in London. The Covid-19 crisis has impacted cultural infrastructure in cities and urban areas the most (Gross et al. 2021), as exemplified by the case study of Milan in the next chapter. We know, from our earlier discussions, that talent (their lives and work) concentrates in urban areas, but there is also acknowledgement of the potential for regional disparities in the distribution of CIs to be exacerbated by the crisis. The Chief Executive of the Creative Industries Federation (CIF), Caroline Norbury, stated (Local Government Association: para. 12): In order to build back better, we must learn from the past. Research shows that following the 2008 financial crash, previously strong regional creative sector growth trends fell away, and growth coalesced around fewer clusters once more. Experience shows that when crisis hits, the regions suffer. As we plan for an economic recovery, regional focus is key. We need to use local knowledge and devolved power to build tailored, community-owned responses from the bottom up.

The loss of income and employment may also force creative talent to relocate— back home or to less expensive cities. The Creativepool (2020) survey also stated that in April, 90% of creatives were working from home, which could have both positive and negative implications for the landscape and distribution of creative talent if this were to become the “new normal”. While the initial rush—by academics and policy organisations—to collect data on the impact of Covid-19 on the CIs and creative talent through surveys, create hashtags and write blogs in order to research, capture and disseminate information from the field (Comunian and England 2020; PEC 2020) has identified the visible critical issues, there are also structural concerns which have remained invisible (Comunian and England 2020). We argue that the lack of exposure given to these issues might reveal long-term issues about the real sustainability of the sector (Wilson et al. 2000) beyond Covid-19. Visible Critical Issues for Creative Talent Comunian and England (2020) tracked all active or concluded surveys on the impact of Covid-19 on CIs (or specific sub-sectors) (n = 22) that were promoted/ circulated in March 2020 and reviewed both the research findings and research questions/objectives. From this, we can consider what was and what was not asked or included in relation to the issues which have subsequently been publicly raised, and those which remain under the radar but nevertheless pose a significant threat to creative talent and the prosperity of the CIs.

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The first main concern voiced across initial sector surveys was, as expected, the perceived impact of Covid-19 on the immediate changes in revenues and its short-term economic viability (Comunian and England 2020). This covered general enquiries into the anticipated or experienced impact of the crisis on both individuals (from a professional perspective) and organisations, including changes to activity and income/revenue (associated with Covid-related closure or reduced consumption), overall financial impact and the likelihood (and duration) of survival (business/organisation) or impact on long-term viability. Significant reductions in organisational activities and individual workloads were reported (CircusWorks 2020; Heritage Fund 2020; Crafts Council UK 2020; BECTU 2020; a-n The Artists Information Company 2020). Awareness among creative talent of the precarious nature of their work was acknowledged in the survey by trade union BECTU (2020: para. 7): “theatre workers, many of whom work on casual contracts and zero-hours contracts, had already anticipated the measures the government introduced later in the week and were aware of the precarious situation they are in”. Widespread concern over the long-term viability/ survival of organisations and individuals’ ability to continue working in the CIs was highlighted (Comunian and England 2020), associated with a lack of financial reserves (CircusWorks 2020; Heritage Fund 2020). This reflects the notorious distrust towards CIs by traditional financial services (Monclus 2015). The second most visible concern highlighted by Comunian and England’s (2020) survey review was the support that CIs and workers require in response to Covid-19. There was an emphasis on support requirements (from the sector and government, including understanding, eligibility and effectiveness of support available) and perceptions of government support measures (at the time of survey). In some cases, there was concern over individual’s understanding of government support, while others addressed the effectiveness of support packages. The findings presented on this front identified issues in eligibility for government support measures in association with being self-employed, but also connected with business types (limited companies) or turnover (Komorowski and Lewis 2020). Many of the organisations were using the surveys and data to lobby government for support, especially in relation to support for freelancers/self-employed and CIs, but also including funding and more general support. In particular, this called for the government and sector organisations to establish emergency funding, and even after support measures were announced4 there was a push for greater clarity over support available, alongside concerns over ineligibility: “early evidence suggests that these will not reach a large proportion of creative businesses and charities, many of whom have lost 100% of their income due to the fallout from Covid-19” (CIF 2020a: para. 3). Further recommendations included speeding up access to finance, expanding eligibility for finance and providing clarity on eligibility. Furthermore, because the government support required a record of tax returns (and for the freelancer to have been trading for the last financial year) a large number of newly self-employed individuals, including recent graduates, fell through the gaps; “With the rise of the ‘gig economy’, there are many new freelancers in the creative industries, most of whom are ineligible” (Komorowski and Lewis 2020: 6).

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Many CIs organisations have stepped in to provide advice (on support initiatives, funding, adapting business/work and other coping mechanisms during the crisis), with most providing links to other (online) sources with guidance for their sector/CIs generally and other advice from creative and non-creative organisations, including government guidance (Comunian and England 2020). Public reporting on these findings was also used to support advocacy work (CIF 2020b; BECTU 2020) and feed into subsequent economic impact analysis (Economics 2020), which in turn has been publicly disseminated (Toynbee 2020). This (in many ways rightly) shone the spotlight further on this issue in order to strengthen the case for support, but also plunged other issues further into darkness. Invisible Personal Experiences and Long-Term Sustainability Across the initial investigations and analysis of the impact of Covid-19 on CIs and creative talent, there has been a lack of demographic information collected, rendering the different experiences of the diverse individuals and groups that constitute the creative workforce invisible. While this absence may reflect data protection regulations, it potentially reveals a disinterest in understanding whether Covid-19 might impact groups of creative talent differently—especially women, the disabled or ethnic minorities (Comunian and England 2020; Eikhof 2020). We already know that the CIs and who gets to be defined as creative talent have an “inclusion and workforce diversity problem: Women, workers from BAME and working class backgrounds, disabled and older workers and workers with caring responsibilities are significantly under-represented and find it disproportionately more challenging to establish and maintain a career” (Eikhof 2020: 1). Eikhof (2020) goes on to state that the Covid-19 crisis risks “sidelining” the sector’s strategic priorities to improve inclusion and opportunity in the cultural economy as attention focuses on economic recovery. Limited and brief references to “family commitments” (Crafts Council UK 2020: para. 2) impacting ability to work in surveys and reports also do not adequately recognise that the ability to work for an income during the crisis might have been affected on other factors, such as caring responsibilities, or that there may be gender-based differences in loss of work and income among creative talent in addition to existing challenges associated with parenting (McDowall et al. 2019) or motherhood (Dent 2019). While little is known about the specific experiences of female creative talent at this time, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that in connection with the Covid-19 crisis: Mothers are more likely than fathers to have left paid work since February; Among mothers and fathers who are still in paid work, mothers have seen a bigger proportional reduction in hours of work than fathers; Among those doing paid work at home, mothers are more likely than fathers to be spending their work hours simultaneously trying to care for children (Andrew et al. 2020: para. 3).

A lack of attention on these issues overall could influence the make-up of the sector and exacerbate inequalities in the long term (Eikhof 2020). This is particularly important for freelance and self-employed creative talent who might already be disadvantaged in their career progression. The implication, as noticed by

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Creative Cardiff, is that potentially more talent will quit the sector: “This impact does not just threaten freelance businesses […] Others were thinking of abandoning the creative industries—until now, one of the UK’s most buoyant and fastest growing sectors—altogether” (Komorowski and Lewis 2020: 2). As creative talent “flees” (Toynbee 2020) by choice or necessity to seek alternative livelihoods, there is also the risk that this will bolster rather than bring down the gender, class and ethnic barriers (Malik et al. 2017; Conor et al. 2015; Brook et al. 2018) to claiming the title of creative talent during and after a recovery period. The second invisible element noted by Comunian and England (2020) and Gross et al. (2021) was the lack of reflection on the long-term implications of the crisis in relation to both the personal/individual and the ecosystem view. They noted minimal questioning and reporting on multiple job holding (two out of 22 surveys reflected on this) (Comunian and England 2020). This limits understanding of how multiple job holding or portfolio working, which is common for creative talent (Ashton 2015), intersects with the loss of income and employment due to Covid-19 or eligibility for government support. Furthermore, if we consider the complexity of the collaborations, networks and partnerships on which creative talent and the creative economy rely (Comunian 2011), it is also important not to look at the impact on freelancers or portfolio workers in isolation. In longer term, this may further damage the creative economy supply chain (Greater London Authority 2020) or create a further breakdown in the ecosystem of provision of freelance activities for key economic growth sectors of the CIs (Comunian and England 2020). In acknowledgement of the long-term and more structural changes that might take place, Creative Cardiff reported that “a breakdown in the freelance workforce will have multiplier effects across creative sectors. They are embedded in supply chains—notably in film and TV production—which may collapse if the freelance population is reduced” (Komorowski and Lewis 2020: 6). Overall however, there has been limited reflection on connections across services and supply chains and the pipeline of CIs (Comunian and England 2020).

6.4

Conclusion: Talent at Risk?

These early reflections on how Covid-19 might impact the CIs and creative talent really highlight how policy and sectoral concerns, while valid, in many ways investigate structural issues in the creative labour market which have always been present but are now being exposed (Comunian and Conor 2017). We acknowledge that most of the organisations who rushed to assess the impact of the crisis care about the livelihoods of their respondents and have often played a part in lobbying for better pay or working conditions for creative talent. However, there remains a tendency to bring the most visible and immediate issues to the attention of the media and government, which, while important, leaves a lot of underlying structural issues uncovered.

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The focus on livelihoods without discussion of demographic characteristics does not seem to acknowledge or make visible the fact that the impact of Covid-19 will be highly varied for different components of the creative workforce. The groups which are recognised in the literature as being more marginalised might end up being the ones paying the higher price (Eikhof 2020)—in our opinion this is not made visible enough. While of course the rush to think of new innovative digital solutions might provide opportunities for some, it will inevitably leave many behind. Furthermore, the long-term issue of sustainability and sustainable livelihoods—beyond the immediate impact—has not been made explicit enough. The rhetoric of resilience (Gupta and Gupta 2019) has become a positive response to the long-term development and underinvestment of the CIs. However, it is interesting to highlight that while policy-makers are positioning the CIs as “the cornerstone of recovery for our communities and local economies from the impacts of COVID” (Local Governament Association 2020: para. 7), CIs organisations themselves have not (so far) championed opportunities or strategies for “resilience”. This seems to highlight that despite the general rhetoric, these organisations are aware that the current lean structure of most CIs does not provide many managerial or organisational buffers to rethink its future development or contribution to wider economic recovery. While addressing immediate concerns, CIs organisations and policy-makers need to engage in the discussion of the broader sustainability of the sector and how the impact of Covid-19 will affect not only creative talent and who gets to work in the CIs (Eikhof 2020), but also broader ecosystems of creative production as well as having potential impact on the diversity of content and provision we will experience in future. To address this, further in-depth and longitudinal research on the impact of the crisis both during the lockdown period and once restrictions on business and social activity have been lifted will be needed to truly understand the short-and long-term impacts on CIs and creative talent and the knock-on impacts on supporting industries. Notes 1. Full lockdown was introduced across the UK from 23 March 2020. On March 16, people were officially advised to avoid all non-essential contact with others. On March 20, all bars, pubs, cafes, theatres and social venues were closed. Museums reopened at the start of July 2020, and a gradual reopening of theatres and concert venues began on 15 August 2020. 2. The SLR allows us to critically integrate a large body of research to consider the research trends in this area. We choose Scopus as a “source-neutral” bibliographic database that is curated by a board of “independent subject matter experts” (Scopus 2019), hence limiting research bias to a certain degree. 3. We queried for “precar* AND creative AND work”, considering only documents in English, published from 2000 till 2019 (last complete year) and found 153 documents between articles (139), books (8) and chapters (6). We limited the search to only for four subject areas: arts and humanities (69).

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4. Covid-19-specific support includes a Job Retention Scheme, a Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS), Protection from Eviction for Commercial Tenants, a Business Interruption Loan Scheme, Cash Grants for Retail, Hospitality and Leisure, Small Business Grant Funding, Statutory Sick Pay Rebates, Time to Pay, VAT Deferral and Deferral of Self-Assessment Payments and Corporate Financing https://www.creativeindustriesfederation.com/news/ covid-19-support-government.

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Morgan G, Wood J, Nelligan P (2013) Beyond the vocational fragments: creative work, precarious labour and the idea of ‘flexploitation.’ Econ Labour Relat Rev 24(3):397–415 Neff G, Wissinger E, Zukin S (2005) Entrepreneurial labor among cultural producers: “Cool” jobs in “hot” industries. Soc Semiot 15(3):307–334 Neilson B, Rossiter N (2005) From precarity to precariousness and back again: labour, life and unstable networks. Fibreculture 5(022):1–19 Nicola M, Alsafi Z, Sohrabi C et al (2020) The socio-economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19): a review. Int J Surg (london, England) 78:185 O’Brien D, Allen K, Friedman S et al (2017) Producing and consuming inequality: a cultural sociology of the cultural industries. Cult Sociol 11:271–282 Oxford Economics (2020) The Projected Economic Impact of Covid-19 on the U.K. Creative Industries. Available at: https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/The-ProjectedEconomic-Impact-of-COVID-19-on-the-UK-Creative-Industries Accessed 10 Dec 2020 PEC (2020) How can the creative industries come together to share how COVID-19 is impacting the sector? The Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC). Available at: https://pec.ac. uk/news/how-can-the-creative-industries-come-together-to-share-how-covid-19-is-impacting-thesector Accessed 10 Nov 2020 Pratt AC (2017) Beyond resilience: learning from the cultural economy. Eur Plann Stud 25 (1):127–139 Raising Films (2016) Making it possible. Voices of parents & carers in the UK film and TV industry. Available at: https://www.raisingfilms.com/portfolio-items/making-it-possible/ Accessed 5 Nov 2020 Rhys T (2020) Coronavirus: theatres are already closing—the UK government needs to act now. Available at: https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-theatres-are-already-closing-theuk-government-needs-to-act-now-141796 Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Robinson M (2010) Making adaptive resilience real. Available at: http://culturehive.co.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2013/04/Making-adaptive-resilience-real.pdf Accessed 22 Nov 2020 Rodgers G, Rodgers J (1989) Precarious jobs in labour market regulation: the growth of atypical employment in Western Europe. International Labour Organisation Ross A (2009) Nice work if you can get it: life and labor in precarious times. NYU Press, New York and London Samdanis M, Lee SH (2019) Access inequalities in the artistic labour market in the UK: a critical discourse analysis of precariousness, entrepreneurialism and voluntarism. Eur Manage Rev 16 (4):887–907 Scopus (2019) Scopus: data | curated. Connected. Complete. Scopus. Available at: https://www. elsevier.com/solutions/scopus Seidel S (2011) Toward a theory of managing creativity-intensive processes: a creative industries study. Inf Syst E-Bus Manage 9(4):407–446 Siebert S, Wilson F (2013) All work and no pay: consequences of unpaid work in the creative industries. Work Employ Soc 27(4):711–721 Simms M, Dean D (2015) Mobilising contingent workers: an analysis of two successful cases. Econ Ind Democracy 36(1):173–190 Sohrabi C, Alsafi Z, O’Neill N et al (2020) World Health Organization declares global emergency: a review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Int J Surg 76:71–76 Taylor S (2015) A new mystique? Working for yourself in the neoliberal economy. Sociol Rev 63:174–187 Townley B, Beech N, McKinlay A (2009) Managing in the creative industries: managing the motley crew. Hum Relat 62(7):939–962 Towse R (1995) The economics of artists’ labour markets. Discussion Papers 9522, University of Exeter, Department of Economics Toynbee P (2020) The UK arts sector was thriving before coronavirus. It’s folly not to save it. The Guardian, 26 June 2020

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Tylee J (2009) Digital Britain summit: Gordon Brown pledges support for creative industries. Campaign. Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/899097/Digital-BritainSummitGordon-Brown-pledges-support-creative-industries/ Accessed 20 Nov 2020 UNESCO (2020) Covid-19 response. UNESCO Website. Available at: https://en.unesco.org/ covid19 Accessed 4 Dec 2020 Waite L (2009) A place and space for a critical geography of precarity? Geogr Compass 3(1):412– 433 Wilkes M, Carey H, Florisson R (2020) The looking glass: mental health in the UK film, TV and cinema industry. Available at: https://filmtvcharity.org.uk/news-event/through-the-lookingglass Accessed 20 Dec 2020 Wilson N, Gross J, Dent T et al (2000) Re-thinking inclusive and sustainable growth for the creative economy: a literature review. DISCE Publications. Available at: https://disce.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2020/01/DISCE-Report-D5.2.pdf Accessed 10 Dec 2020

Chapter 7

Empowering Talent: Campaigning and Activism for Work and Cities

Abstract The chapter focuses on talent in the context of the creative economy and specifically considers how creative talent has been responding and reacting to precarity and rights to the city in the past two decades. Building on the recognition of increased financial and social pressures imposed on creative and cultural workers by neoliberal urban policies and the erosion of workers’ rights and securities, the chapter presents forms of activism and resistance that have emerged across cities in the Global North. Firstly, we consider campaigns and actions in relation to the right to space and the city for these workers; secondly, we focus on responses to challenging working conditions including precarity and unpaid work. Finally, we use the examples of two European cities (Athens and Milan) to reflect on how creative workers have engaged with new solidarity and participatory interventions to respond to moment of crisis.

7.1

Introduction

Building on the contradictions and challenges exposed in the previous chapter, in this chapter we continue to focus on talent in the context of the creative economy, consisting of talent working either in creative industries or in creative occupations (Sect. 2.2.1), also referred to as “creative talent”. We have previously discussed how firstly the 2007–9 global financial crisis and then the Covid-19 global pandemic have played a role in exposing how creative talent is often associated with precarious working conditions and unstable career patterns. As others highlight (Comunian and Conor 2017), creative talent often remains invisible due to the unstructured and often informal and unregulated nature of some of the contracts that are offered in the creative and cultural sector. In this chapter, however, we argue that creative talent has not always remained passive in the face of these challenges. It is important to consider how creative talent has engaged in activism and campaigning or resistance.1 The chapter explores two key aspects of these forms of activism: activism in relation to urban development, connecting with issues of gentrification and space for creative talent in the city (as mentioned earlier in our © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_7

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discussion on urban inequalities), and activism more closely associated with working conditions. There is a wide range of literature which also considers activism in relation to diversity, equity and inclusion, and other issues of representation within the sector but, unfortunately, we could not expand on those themes here. The final part of the chapter explores more closely two case studies of how the economic crisis in Athens (Greece) and Covid-19 in the context of Milan (Italy) have strengthened the emergence of bottom-up approaches to cultural participation and creative talent workers’ rights.

7.2

Creative Talent: Campaigning for Space and Rights to the City

The emergence of activism, resistance and campaigning to protect the space of creative talent and creative and cultural productions and expressions in cities is strongly intertwined with the emergence of new neoliberal competitive city redevelopment policies from the 1960s to the 1980s (Mayer 2013). However, from the initial critiques of economic-driven urban regeneration and redevelopment in the pre-2000s, we find more renewed activism emerging specifically in response to creative city policies and the new urban hype offered by the international success of the creative class theory (Florida 2002). As mentioned earlier on in the book, in this specific context the same creative city policies which are often aimed at making the city appealing to talent seem to end up pricing out creative talent—especially the most precarious and unstable workers in the sector. d’Ovidio and Rodríguez Morató (2017), editors of a special issue “Against the creative city”, highlight this contradiction as they explore how cultural workers are contesting culturally based neoliberal urban policies (or creative city policies) that tend to exploit them. Novy and Colomb (2013, p. 1820) highlight: we are witnessing a new phase of mobilization and politicization among cultural producers, as a seemingly increasing number of them takes issue with the growth-oriented entrepreneurial policy agendas that local leaders in their cities pursue, as well as with the appropriation or outright destruction of culture and creativity that such agendas entail.

Culture and creativity have increased their importance in post-industrial cities as both economic activity and sectors of employment (Breitbart 2016), and their symbolic and branding value (Hoyng 2014; Evans 2003) has increased over time. In addition, as the number of often precarious workers in these sectors tends to concentrate in cities, it seems obvious for forms of artistic activism to concentrate in cities but also to contribute to a potentially diverging vision of urban development. As Valli (2017) points out, it is also important to consider that the mobilisation of creative talent against city redevelopment is connected and often overlapping with their mobilisations in relation to precarity. We discuss this further later in this chapter.

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Fuelling this activism is the acknowledgement that the creative city agenda has not been developed as a dialogue and has not involved local stakeholders (Chatterton 2000). Instead, it has built on the fact that over the years “political-economic and policy developments (from ‘Keynesian city’ vs. ‘neoliberal urbanism’) have narrowed the space for social contestation in many ways” (Mayer 2013, p. 8). However, Valli highlights “The potential for using artistic languages and applying them to political and urban issues […] These languages can open the door to unexplored connections, challenge perceptions of power relations and hence trigger political debates” (2015, p. 656). She argues that both “aesthetic tactics” and cultural workers can therefore be valuable as potential subversive forces (ibid). There are examples of creative workers across Europe and North America contesting the neoliberal creative city policies that typically lead to their displacement. This has been explored in a variety of urban contexts in the Global North, ranging from Toronto (Kagan and Hahn 2011) to Berlin (Novy and Colomb 2013). It is hard to generalise as these forms of activism are very place-based, so might be more intense in cities with higher pressure on property development or where major investment has taken place. Similarly, they might not necessarily involve all creative workers uniformly, as precarious workers are likely to be more effected. Furthermore, among creative workers gender (Kern 2020), class or ethnicity might also bring different struggles and experiences. In the case of Berlin (Novy and Colomb 2013), we find even conflict within the creative sector with a diverse set of actors (the local club scene being a significant part) mobilised to contest a private project supported by the Berlin Senate—Media Spree—which envisioned the area near the River Spree as a creative cluster for the media and music industries. The development originally built on the local artistic and cultural informal infrastructure as a strength for the potential of local creative industries to cluster. However, opposition began in 2008 under the slogan “Sink the Media Spree” against “the massive scale and nature of the proposed developments and the foreseeable privatization of access to the riverside, as well as to voice concerns about gentrification and the displacement of the area’s subcultural fabric” (ibid, p. 1825). The case of Berlin is not isolated but very illustrative of the fragile balance existing between the opportunity to intervene and support the sector and still support its informality and grass-roots nature (Comunian and Mould 2014). The example of Berlin is useful to highlight how creative city urban policies as well as their counterpart resistance often belong to a range of professions and creative industries or professions. While urban investments and intervention might benefit some, they often affect others negatively—not only within creative workers. In cities across Europe, we find that creative talent is often at the forefront of initiatives aiming to protect the space for formal and information creative activities in the city. They often initiate and lead the protests (see Novy and Colomb 2013; d’Ovidio and Cossu 2017; Romeiro 2017). As Mayer points out, a wider range of social groupings might contribute (from anarchists to creative professionals to environmentalists to people of colour), but while they might all be “affected by contemporary forms of dispossession and alienation, they occupy very different strategic positions within the post-industrial

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neoliberal city. It is crucial to acknowledge and understand these differences if we want to succeed in bringing these forces together” (2013, p. 11). In fact, within these broader agendas activism against creative city policies might connect with protest against austerity and funding cuts, or other social justice issues for minorities and weaker members of society. This, as Mayer (2013) highlights, means it is important that in the analysis of these movements there is a reflection on class, race and privilege and that it connects with the rising inequalities addressed earlier in this book. Another problematic and contradictory element of creative city policies is that many of the interventions, often presented as “opportunities”, that aim to support precarious workers and grass-roots creativity—such as offering free temporary spaces—frequently result in the form of instrumentalisation. In fact, these interventions can be used to re-qualify a location and price out the precarious workers themselves. Similarly, Mayer highlights that while movements’ principles such as independence, self-organisation and creative freedom might be supported even at the policy level, they are also used as “a generative force in today’s neoliberalizing cities” (2013, p. 12). So, the principles on which activist movements engage with the city might also be hijacked towards different urban development goals. The activists’ role becomes increasingly visible as they set up various enterprises and projects to contest the status quo, but also becomes necessarily entangled in the politics of place-based regeneration and redevelopment. Famous cases discussed in the literature are Macao, a “New Centre for Arts, Culture and Research” founded through the occupation of an abandoned skyscraper (Italy) (d’Ovidio and Cossu 2017) and Manobras no Porto (Portugal), a large-scale regional authority event transformed into a platform for creative activism (Romeiro 2017). In the case of Macao, the authors recognised that the success of the movement that started occupying empty buildings, such as Galfa Tower, was in the ability to negotiate with the city council of Milan and even become recognised by the municipality as a partner (d’Ovidio and Cossu 2017). As Valli (2015) also highlights, looking at the same case, Macao tries to raise awareness through “appearance” (occupations) and “aesthetic tactics” (guerrilla branding) and even the occupation of Galfa Tower was undertaken as a public campaign rather than the occupation of a place to stay. However, this grass-roots success was possible, according to the authors, because they pushed forward a culture and arts participation agenda, which had much stronger support among public opinion and local governments than other movements focusing on rights to housing and social issues. Furthermore, the age and social capital of the people involved in the movement were considered a crucial advantage in the negotiations as these included “core members, who in their current work or past experience have handled projects involving public bodies, from the EU to local governments” (d’Ovidio and Cossu 2017, p. 10). Similarly, Valli highlights that:

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In both physical and virtual space, Macao has appropriated, mimicked, and overturned the semiotic codes of commercial communication to convey a political message against these very commercial logics. […] the fact that this was conducted by professionals from these sectors, has created something quite unique in the context of urban social movements (2015, p. 656).

The case of Manobras no Porto (Romeiro 2017) instead offers an original example of developing creative activism as a public project mediated by a group of creatives. In fact, the creative activism activities were embedded as part of an open public call for projects from the local development agency. The author highlights how one of the main outcomes was that this project allowed creatives and policymakers to experiment with or re-imagine “new spaces of governance” (ibid, p. 27). The research of Buser et al. (2013), exploring the activities of two activist groups in Stokes Croft in Bristol, pushes the arguments further by suggesting that “cultural activism can serve as a form of urban place-making”, which is also observed by Novy and Colomb (2013) in their German case studies. Their work reveals how creative practices (such as murals, graffiti, guerrilla signs, carnivalesque protests) act as powerful means to spark enthusiasm around social/political activism in urban settings and are used as a form of social contestation, which in turn further contributes to place-making (Buser et al. 2013). This supports Valli’s (Valli 2015) argument that “aesthetic tactics” are valuable for raising awareness of various political and social issues and initiating debate; however, it can be questioned how much they promote real change. Similarly, Borén and Young (2017) reflecting on the case of Sweden remind us that artists’ responses to urban policies do not always transpire into epic protests and occupation of building that lead to eviction and so on. They can be more mundane most of the time (at least in Sweden). Nevertheless, the case studies in the literature discussed here seem to suggest that activism and contestation from creatives have significant potential, if not to close the “creative policy gap” (Borén and Young 2013) then certainly to make it narrower. For example, activism may result in re-imagining the spaces of governance (Romeiro 2017); “aesthetic tactics” can also “open the door to unexplored connections, challenge perceptions of power relations and hence trigger political debates” (Valli 2015, p. 656). Thanks to these movements, policy-making may indeed become a more “creative” endeavour (Borén and Young 2013). However, as others illustrate in the case of the Ravel district of central Barcelona (Rius-Ulldemolins and Klein 2020), forms of artistic activism could potentially be integrated in local planning—without necessarily being instrumentalised. In this case, they suggest “local government and public cultural institutions have taken the concerns of creators and Artivism activists into account when drawing up urban renewal schemes. […] artistic output has been boosted (some would say “co-opted”) through official plans for the district” (ibid, p. 13).

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Creative Talent Contexting and Responding to Precarity

As mentioned in relation to the creative activism towards space and rights to the city, in the movements putting emphasis on the precarious working conditions of creative talent we can also find the strategy of employing artistic language and practices to re-enact, visualise and mobilise (De Sario 2007). As discussed in the last chapter, the precarity of creative talent has slowly increased and become more visible in the last twenty years, with the broader erosion on workers’ rights in neoliberal national policies (Ross 2009; Filion 2013). This results in creative talent often being more visible—thanks also to its creative methods—in connection with precarity activism but often ending up uniting across a range different social groupings—similarly as discussed by Mayer (2013) in relation to movements against displacement—from migrants to the middle class affected by the continuous eroding of social securities (Filion 2013). It is also acknowledged that creative workers are weakly unionised (De Peuter and Cohen 2015). In fact, as discussed in the previous chapter and according to Waite (2009), precarity and precarious working conditions affect workers from opposite ends of the labour market: low-paid unskilled workers (such as cleaners, careers, delivery drivers) are part of the gig economy (De Stefano 2015) alongside the highly skilled workforce of the creative economy. Therefore, as Figiel suggests, “Artists and cultural workers do not require ‘special’ rights and need not campaign solely within the sector of art and culture. Rather, like all other workers, it is possible for them to organise their activities in solidarity with other struggles around specific labour market practices and wider systemic issues” (Figiel 2018: 144). Gill and Pratt (2008) explore the connection between immaterial work and precariousness in connection with mainstream theories of work. They consider the role of autonomist (autonomous Marxist tradition) writings on capitalism that see the autonomy of labour and workers ability/power to change things, alongside activist writings on precarity (Operaismo) that focus on refusal and resistance, and sociological/empirical literature on creative labour and its particularities that highlight the particularities/uniqueness of cultural works through notions of “affective labour”, “immaterial labour” and “passionate work”. Essentially, our ability or desire to resist the status quo is hampered by the perceived attractiveness of the creative work and the self-perpetuating image and construction of identity of the artist/creative. Similarly, De Peuter and Cohen (2015) argue that the literature on cultural labour treats creatives as either subjects of neoliberalism or victims of precarity. They say we need to approach cultural workers as agents of change. A well-known example shared activism against precarity—but front-led by creative activism—is the one of San Precario, analysed by both Vanni Accarigi and Tarì (2005) and Mattoni and Doerr (2007). This “Saint” figure was created in 2004 by a group of Milanese activists (Chainworkers) and “designed” to have all the traditional features and protective aspirations of a Saint from the Catholic Religion. He was “allocated” to protect “precarious, casualised, sessional, intermittent,

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temporary, flexible, project, freelance and fractional workers” (Vanni Accarigi and Tarì 2005: 1) against precarity in Italy. Furthermore, the Saint figure was “summoned” to appear in in public spaces and occasions of demonstrations and protests. Vanni Accarigi and Tarì (2005) discuss in detail how San Precario has been used but also multiplied to support different agendas and workers as well as the LGBT community and other equality agendas. Similarly, Mattoni (2008) discussed the case of fictional Anglo-Japanese Serpica Naro, fabricated by activists to raise awareness of precarious working conditions among fashion designers in Milan through complex social media construction and a fake fashion show (Gherardi and Murgia 2015). Arguably, one of the most notable examples of bottom-up mobilisation in response to precarious labour, and one of the most documented (see Vanni Accarigi and Tarì 2005; Mattoni and Doerr 2007; Gill and Pratt 2008), is the EuroMay Day Parade, a transnational protest event held since 2005 on May 1 in a dozen or more European cities (Foti 2009). The movement originated in Milan in 2001 where a group of activists, “Chainworkers”—the same group of activists responsible for San Precario and Serpica Naro (De Sario 2007)—united “to create a May Day parade that would give voice and visibility to temporary workers, part-timers, free-lancers, and other service laborers belonging to the “precarious generation”” (Foti 2009: 1). There is also a wide range of the literature connecting precarious working conditions, with broader issues of lack of access and diversity within the sector (Hennekam and Syed 2018; Creative Diversity Network 2019; Cobb 2020; Cobb et al. 2020; Newsinger and Eikhof 2020; Nwonka 2020) which cannot be fully explored in this chapter. These have also connected with new forms of activism across social media globally, such as the #metoo movement (Verhoeven et al. 2019; Onwuachi-Willig 2018). There are a range of similar movements/mobilisations across Europe that address precarity such as Generation Précaire (France), Precarias ala Deriva (Madrid, Spain), Precarious Workers Brigade (UK) as well as in North America, such as Cultural Workers Organize (Canada) and Working Artists and the Greater Economy (W.A.G.E.) in the USA as discussed by De Peuter (2020). Perlin (2012) also offers an interesting list of forums and events that have put these topics on urban and international agendas: “Precarity Ping Pong” held in London (2004); “The International Meeting of the Precariat” in Berlin (2005) and “Precair Forum” held in Amsterdam (2005) just to name a few. Similar to Borén and Young (2017), we can argue that the reaction of (creative) workers to precarious labour conditions most of the time does not transpire in protest and demonstrations but may lead to other forms of “institutional innovations” (De Peuter 2011) to mitigate the precarity within and beyond the creative economy. While activism, campaigns and demonstrations are key to raise awareness of precarious working conditions, other forms of intervention and action might include:

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low-cost coworking facilities sprouting up in cities to counteract the isolation experienced by freelancers; legislative frameworks such as the unique, but admittedly embattled, unemployment benefit available to part- time media and live performance workers in France; or alternative economic assemblages, like the worker cooperative, which promise a structure for mutual aid among independent cultural workers (De Peuter 2011, p. 422).

De Peuter and Cohen (2015) group all of the above-mentioned collective efforts of creative workers (to contest precarity, but also displacement) under the concept of “mutual aid”: “a concept that can identify worker’s collective effort to resist the individualization and structural competitiveness of cultural labour” (ibid, p. 315). Arguably, mutual aid and collectivisation is the only way for creatives to achieve change. This implies going against the individualisation narrative of CCIs and of the wider neoliberal frameworks imposed. However, similar initiatives might be more or less effective depending on the wider social frameworks of different countries and the present and strength of unions. De Peuter and Cohen (2015) also identified three mutual aid institutions in the creative industries: artist-run spaces; worker cooperatives (democratically controlled businesses including coworking spaces); and occupied cultural spaces (so more openly antagonistic like Macao) through and in which cultural workers “are engaging in cooperation to support one another in navigating the precarious labour markets and developing collaborative practices that facilitate collectivity and solidarity, providing a counter to the enterprising ethos so integrated in contemporary cultural work” (ibid, p. 315). Coworking spaces are a somewhat contested site of such “mutual aid” in that they “emerged as a worker-developed response to changing economic conditions but, in its current form, is increasingly commodified and ultimately reinforces labour flexibilization” (De Peuter et al. 2017). This reflects the previous discussion on how activism can sometimes be subverted and appropriated by broader developments within the neoliberal city. In particular, the dominance of large corporations in the sector (neo-corporate ones such as WeWork) and their use of them by others as an “innovation stimulant, a recruitment venue and a low-overhead location for temporary project teams” (ibid, p. 5) has been criticised. However, Gandini and Cossu (2019) have found that more recently new forms of coworking spaces have appeared—resilient spaces to oppose the neo-corporate model criticised by De Peuter and colleagues. Therefore, it is interesting to consider that coworking is a way of coping with the precarious economics of creative talent but might also increase its appeal or viability. De Peuter et al. (2017, 5) reflects “it reinforces the processes whose effects it is a partial defence against: coworking simultaneously reacts to and facilitates the fragmentation of employment into so many ‘gigs’, the rise of involuntary entrepreneurialism and the restructuring of firms according to a contracting-out model”. However, it might also facilitate or interlink with activism (Gandini and Cossu 2019). In particular, Gandini and Cossu (2019) highlight an evolution of coworking from an early stage (avant-garde phase) to the point when coworking went mainstream, with lots of corporate developments coming into the picture (such as global investors and companies like WeWork, Google or Impact Hub) to a new emerging resilient phase. Despite that commodification, small and independent

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spaces remained a key component of coworking. “Their recent resurgence is […] part of a more comprehensive countermovement, made of spaces that […] position themselves in opposition to the neoliberal culture that these uncritically reproduce” (ibid, p. 5). In this last phase, coworking spaces are changing into organisations that blend “entrepreneurial logics with forms of political and social activism” (ibid, p. 2) and this enables workers to engage with “socially embedded forms of activism seeking to restore coworking to its grassroots origins, and positions it against the colonisation of coworking practices by the neoliberal culture of work” (p. 15). This further turn might bring to the forefront the idea of community of co-workers but also the importance of individual well-being (Mossa 2020; Dale and Burrell 2010). Alongside coworking, Comunian et al. (2020) consider the shift of business models and increased emphasis on the “creative social economy” as an area where creative talent meets and connects with a broader contribution to society beyond the economic growth model (Gross 2022; Wilson et al. 2020). Alacovska (2019) research indicates creative workers “have reoriented their professional self-image from artists into social entrepreneurship, while retooling their artistic skills for community-based work” (p. 1130). Part of this shift towards new business models, such as the one explored by England (2020) in the case of an open-access studio, also connects with opportunities to reflect on business models that might provide a more supportive and caring (Wilson 2018) framework. One such model is that of cooperatives. Boyle and Oakley (2018) believe that the co-op business model has potential to tackle a wider range of issues in the creative industries including precarity. Also, Sandoval (2016) considers how worker cooperatives have the potential to improve working conditions of the cultural sector: “cultural co-ops can offer a real possibility for humanising work so that autonomy, freedom and sharing are freed from their neoliberal distortions. […] Such workplaces could contribute to replacing competitive and individualised work cultures with more collaborative forms of producing cultural commons” (Sandoval 2016). However, as noted by McQuilten (2014) in relation to creative or art-based social enterprises, such models continue to navigate a fine line between commercial business and community-focused economic development and the needs of diverse stakeholders (McCarthy 2008; McQuilten 2014; Evans and Fortune 2019). There can also remain barriers to engagement associated with access fees but also intangible social capital requirements (England 2020). As Novy and Colomb (2013) propose in relation to the struggle for space and the right to the city, De Peuter and Cohen (2015) also identify the potential of “policy from below” in relation to precarity. They focus on cultural workers’ participation process and consider the importance of “their role as generators of proposals attentive to labour issues”` (De Peuter and Cohen 2015, p. 310). They go on to say that “policy innovation lies not in the top-down designs of state and corporate actors, but in the bottom up solutions proposed by workers and their collective organisations” (ibid, p. 310) and take the example of the Canada in relation to the Urban Worker Strategy or Status of the Artist Act. The discussion on Milan creative workers to Covid-19 discussed by Tanghetti et al. (2021) and later in this chapter connects with the potential of bottom-up dynamics to create broader institutional changes.

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Unpaid Work, Internships and the Value of Knowledge and Skills

Another key dimension of the contradictory economics of creative talent is that high levels of human capital are not consistently rewarded by the labour market, as discussed earlier in the book in relation to creative graduates. This is typically the case at the start of creative workers’ careers, a period which has often been associated with unpaid internships (Siebert and Wilson 2013), although unpaid labour can span whole creative careers (Brook et al. 2020). It is argued that “The labour market practice of interning creates discursive, normative and structural patterns of precarisation. These patterns in turn shape subjective and intersubjective expectations of work and life, impacting on the actions that individuals make and thus acting as drivers of further precarisation” (Moody 2020: 1). Perlin’s (2012) book Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy was key in bringing this practice into the spotlight internationally (Lee 2015; De Peuter et al. 2015; Moody 2020). In this book, he exposes the often exploitative and discriminatory nature of internships across a wide range of industries such as law and finance including the CIs, highlighting the consequences of class inequalities upon this practice which created a situation where only those who can afford to work for free—the wealthy middle class—can access most desirable jobs. In the creative industries, where substandard working conditions are widespread, interns are particularly vulnerable as often they are not protected by the law (Perlin refers to the practice as a “legal grey area”). More recently, “Interrogating Internships” became a subject of a special issue of triple C: Communication, Capitalism and Critique (De Peuter et al. 2015). This strand of critical literature has presented internships, at least in the CCIs, as “a form of regenerative precarisation” whereby “Objective circumstances such as industry opportunities, labour market competition and the difficulties of gaining industry ‘access’ combined with the passion and commitment of entry level workers to ‘do what I love’ provides a cyclical pool of labour for the industry which is free, cheap, willing, and dependent” (Moody 2020, p. 20). This problematic and often unregulated practice has been so embedded within the creative sector’s development and growth in the last twenty years that within the wider movement against precarious work, campaigns and activism against them have sometimes been the most visible. Perlin (2012: 200) highlights how “examples of intern rebellion are multiplying across Europe” and lists a range of online campaigns and blogs that have emerged (despite often being short-lived) such as Intern Aware and Internocracy, Interns Anonymous, Future Interns but also internationally the Canadian Intern Association, Intern Labour Rights in the USA and Carrotworkers’s collective now Precarious Workers Brigade in the UK. Kompatsiaris (2015) exposes practices of several anti-precarity anti-internship collectives. He consider the tactics used such as “classic activist tactics of boycotting, site-specific protests, pressure groups counter-guides, whistleblowing, and name and shame approaches mixed with performance art and playful interventions”

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(2015, p. 556). Webb (2015) also analyses challenges to unpaid internships in Ontario, Canada, and notes social activism, lawsuits against companies to claim back pay (a small number) and the positive response from the Ontario Ministry of Labour as three types of resistance. The creative and performative nature is illustrated by the public action organised by Future Interns against the Serpentine Gallery where protesters dressed as Santa Claus and entered the gallery under a banner saying “All that we want for Christmas is pay”, distributing flyers criticising the gallery’s unpaid internship listings. Kompatsiaris (2015) notes that “The protest can be thought of as performance art piece in itself, bringing together, playfully and bitterly, the issue of unpaid work, the custom of Christmas gift giving, and a humorous masquerade” (p. 561). Digital mediums have become increasingly important for activism (Banks 2010; Figiel 2018). For example, Webb notes that: the Canadian Intern Association has a ‘Wall of Shame’ on its website, where illegal internships are identified and criticized from legal and ethical perspectives, and a ‘Wall of Fame,’ where employers are praised for their legal and ethical internship practices. While its website offers analytical depth, the Canadian Intern Association, alongside SAUIS and Toronto labour lawyer Andrew Langille, have used social media, namely Twitter, to name and shame a wider range of employers who use unpaid interns (2015, p. 580).

Digital platforms not only help to publicly disseminate information, but also help with staying anonymous, which seems quite important for activists in this line of protest (as suggested by Kompatsiaris 2015; Webb 2015). As Webb puts it: “social media provides an opportunity for anonymity that can help shield interns from negative repercussions that may accompany speaking out against unpaid internships” (2015, pp. 580–581). Furthermore, fabricating an online backlash against a perpetrator seems like a powerful instrument for contesting various issues especially in today’s cancel culture! (see Webb 2015 or Kompatsiaris 2015). So far, we have mostly covered informal types of groups whose organisation is more horizontal and bottom up, but there are organisations of a more traditional style that represent the interests of creatives such as Artistic Trade Unions, which have fees and criteria for membership, e.g. the Scottish Artist Union or Artist Union England (Figiel 2018). The Writers Guild of America is another example (Banks 2010).

7.5

Creative Workers’ Response in Moment of Crisis

In this section, we present a close-up of two European case studies which provide an insight into the ways grass-roots action and activism emerge in moment of crisis. In the first, we look at the case of Athens and artists involved in the Athens Fringe Festival exploiting the deepest financial crisis in Greece to reposition the agenda for cultural democracy and the role of culture in the city. In the second, we look at the city of Milan and the recent response from its creative and cultural workers to the Covid-19 crisis and the lack of social securities experienced by the sector.

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Cultural Democracy and Grass-roots Creative Talent in Athens Brokalaki and Comunian (2021) discuss the impact of the global financial crisis (2007–2009) on the economy and cultural economy of Athens, the capital of Greece. Looking at officially published reports (Avdikos et al. 2017), during the first period of the crisis, between 2008 and 2014, the national added value generated by CCIs in Greece decreased by 55.1%, the total recorded number of cultural enterprises decreased approximately by 28% and the number of people working within this industry was reduced by 29.5%. During the same period, the overall EU numbers followed an opposite direction. There was a 36.5% increase in cultural creative enterprises that triggered the upsurge of the added value by 29%. There is not yet enough research on the relationship between creative talent and crisis in urban or national context, and the largest body of literature looks at the impact of economic crisis on culture as a sector (Levine 2018). However, there is a more interesting take that emerges across a limited number of sources, which address more specifically the question of what is the role of the arts (and artists) in relation to economic crisis (Lerer and McGarrigle 2018). For example, Leventis (2013) reflects on the use of graffiti in Athens during the economic crisis. In a specific moment of crisis, creative talent turned not only to disused but also to destroyed architecture as their new urban canvas: Noncommissioned artists now carefully chose sites according to what message was to be conveyed and who the intended audience was […] street art has flourished on the decaying urban body. […] It is work that often speaks of a desire to depart, or to escape […], but the wounded city, both hated and loved by its citizens, still enchants and keeps them within its walls (ibid, p. 7).

Graffiti and urban writing on public transport was also investigated by Austin and Hobbs (2001) in relation to the urban crisis of New York in the 1960s and 1970s. Forms of art and activism are specifically reconnecting the ideas of economic and societal crisis and its connection with community arts. Wetherell (2013) looks at the case of London and Tower Hamlets to trace back the community art and activism that allowed for the emergence of new forms of participation and individual expression in the community. The centrality of activism especially by artists and cultural producers in response to the local economic crisis in cities in the Global North (Sholette and Lippard 2017) and South (Masiello 2001; Longoni 2008) has been unprecedented. However, it is not necessarily the activism of artists that can shape the cultural dynamics of the city but the activism of artists within their own communities and cities that shapes broader collective participation. Brokalaki and Comunian (2021) specifically consider the role played by the Athens Fringe Festival. The lack of financial support, the absence of investment that used to favour large-scale cultural projects and the inadequate cultural infrastructure motivated the formation of a range of bottom-up creative collectives that strive to realise self-initiated and self-managed socially oriented arts projects in unexpected locations with minimal resources (Cloughton 2012). As a result, the urban environment has been aesthetically “attacked” by non-professional creatives, who stage

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live art events in the streets and organise cultural interventions outside the institutional cultural framework (Tsiara 2015). Although some top-down cultural gentrification initiatives are still evident in the city, the Greek debt crisis and the harsh effects of the imposed austerity programmes have inspired a grass-roots cultural urbanism, which has become the new norm in Athens in recent years. As predicted by Souliotis (2013: 67), “the post-crisis Athenian cultural economy will be altered: it probably will become smaller and less consumption-oriented” and a new focus has emerged around alternative models of cultural consumption and participation that reject traditional structures of publicly funded or market-driven models for culture. The alternative use of resources and the mobilisation of the community have also provided alternative visions of representation and everyday creativity (Gross and Wilson 2020). Recent scholarship increasingly recognises that social practice art opens up important spaces for building alternative worlds and forging solidarities (Alacovska 2019). The case of Athens supports the vision that “By deploying their work in progressive social action, creative workers both preserve hope in individual creative work and also in self-organized communitarian action and solidarity” (ibid, 1131). Creative Workers’ Response to Covid-19 in Milan A timely case study of activism by Tanghetti et al. (forthcoming) is described here in connection with the impact of Covid-19 on Milan’s creative and cultural workers. The case of Milan (and the Lombardy region) is used as an interesting and known case in the literature—for having the highest concentration of creative workers in Italy (Symbola 2019). However, it also made headlines during the start of the spread of Covid-19 in Europe and has ended up so far concentrating the highest percentage of deaths and infections from Covid-19 across all Italy (Kapitsinis 2020). Their project involved a range of creative workers across the region that due to precarious working conditions have been most exposed to the social insecurity heightened by the pandemic. All the participants highlighted that despite being aware of their lack of social security and precariousness, Covid-19 had shown them that many across society had contracts and employment that granted them some form of social security during the pandemic, while creative and cultural workers—always moving from one short-term contract to the next—had none. The research highlights how Covid-19 and specifically the lockdown period provided Milan-based creative workers for the first time the opportunity on one side to pause, stop and reflect on their working conditions. They all reported that due to their precarity, hectic schedule and irregular working hours, they never had the time to actually reflect on their working conditions while chasing the next job or contract. The moment of interruption, however, also offered the opportunity to connect with colleagues via social media and other Internet-based platforms; for the first time, it was clear to the workers that the impact of Covid-19 and their precarity was not an individual but a shared condition. One of the workers involved reported “being stuck at home has allowed us, both artists and technicians and other support workers to organise, to find the moment to see each other virtually […] The

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lockdown created a self-awareness in almost everyone”. Tanghetti et al. (forthcoming) reveal how this awareness gave rise to a range of new solidarity groups and movements during the period March–May 2020 which started to coordinate under the regional umbrella organisation “Coordinamento Spettacolo Lombardia”. This resulted in a series of public protests in the squares of Milan as soon as the lockdown was lifted (Mosca 2020), and for the first time it also opened up a dialogue for creative and cultural works to discuss their working conditions with the local policy-makers and administrative bodies. However, for many of the creative and cultural workers interviewed by Tanghetti et al. (forthcoming) there were also critical perspectives towards the future of creative and cultural work post-Covid-19, with many having already moved out of the city or changed job to be able to support themselves. This raised further questions about the way policy and “care” for the sector are often still too centred around the idea of supporting cultural outputs (a specific event or show) or creative and cultural institutions (such as museums or theatres), while very little attention is placed on the workers and their contribution towards the cultural provision of cities. The case study of Milan is an interesting demonstration of the need to recognise ethics of care for creative and cultural workers that pays attention to and recognises their needs for sustainable welfare support (Alacovska and Bissonnette 2019; Wilson et al. 2020).

7.6

Conclusion

The chapter has highlighted how despite the challenging conditions imposed by moments of crisis and the heightened neoliberalisation of contracts and working conditions of creative workers in cities in the Global North, creative talent in the last two decades has been empowered to contest, campaign and actively question the status quo. In particular, it is important to consider how these new models of collectivism and activism also offer an overall alternative to the nature of creative talent—against a highly individualised notion—that starting from the rhetoric of the “creative genius” (Montuori and Purser 1995) pushes workers towards increasingly individualised competitive behaviours that often result in lower contractual standards and securities (Smith and McKinlay 2009), including the acceptance that working for free can be seen advantageous for future career opportunities (Hope and Figiel 2015; Shade and Jacobson 2015). On the contrary, as suggested also by England (2020) in the case of open-access studios, more collaborative approaches to creativity could prove to be more sustainable (Bilton 2018) and challenge existing practice. The emergence of solidarity and activism but also the opportunities offered by other collective work practices (communities of practice, collectives and cooperatives) might enable a future development of the sector that allow for “care” for its workers beyond the value of institutional or economic-driven value attributed to the sector (Alacovska and

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Bissonnette 2019). The case studies of Athens and Milan also highlight how moments of crisis and disruption are the ones where the challenges of creative talent are most exposed (Comunian and Conor 2017), but that more needs to be done to reflect on those challenges in contemporary cities beyond the exceptional circumstances. However, these moments of crisis can also be generative moments, where status quo can be questioned and new approaches and new modes of intervention and solidarity—often rising from a policy vacuum—can emerge and be tested, offering opportunities to re-future creative talent and its value (Tanghetti et al. forthcoming). Notes 1. In this chapter, we are considering activism more broadly rather than art activism, which has been defined “as a hybrid practice combining codes, objectives and processes from artistic practice and from activism” (Serafini 2018, para. 2). Therefore, we are considering all forms of manifestation or protest, not specifically art-based ones.

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Chapter 8

Conclusions

Abstract The conclusing chapter reflects on the importance of bringing together the different definitions and perspectives on talent explored by the book. It critical pushes the agenda for future research on talent to consider how to support talent in its development, to explore its relationship with cities and localities and future mobilities and finally to engage with more collective and care-full approaches to talent against its individualisation. The chapter also offers insights into policy-making discussing five key components of future talent-centred policy-making.

In the book, we explored the concept of talent from a multidisciplinary perspective. The chapters have acknowledged the historical development of the concept and highlighted how it has become more and more central to both academic research and policy-making. While it is challenging to reconcile some of the more neoliberal views and agendas for the term with the more cultural or artistic inspired ones, with this book, we tried to recognise the importance of bringing different and concurring understandings together, to allow them to connect with each other. It is important that the range of theories, definitions and perspectives presented in this book does not remain siloed but engages with each other in order to provide researchers and policy-makers with a better picture of the different dynamics that concern talent, including potential challenges and limitations. In these conclusions, we highlight that there are important challenges and considerations that still need to be drawn out, especially in the light of the impact of Covid-19 on our societies and economies. The challenges we hope could form the base for a renewed research agenda on talent for the next decade. In particular, how to support talent in its development, reconsider its relationship with cities and localities and future mobilities and finally more collective and care-full approaches to talent against its individualisation.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Comunian et al., The Economics of Talent, SpringerBriefs in Regional Science, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95124-9_8

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8.1

8 Conclusions

Supporting Talent in Its Development

The book has exposed the challenges faced by creative graduates (Comunian et al. 2010; England 2020a) and the structural barriers often present on entering creative careers (O’Brien et al. 2017; Oakley and O’Brien 2016). Recent economic studies, both in UK (Britton et al. 2019; Jewell and Faggian 2014) and Australia (Norton 2012), put forward a detailed account of the financial returns obtained by graduates in relation to their field of study. The data is often used to question the value of higher education in the creative arts fields. As Comunian and Brook (2019) argue, these studies are important to give us a better understanding of the financial difficulties that creative talent faces—especially at the start of their individual careers. They also add critical inputs to the need to better capture the relationship between talent—especially at its early development stages and (under) employment. They also suggest that any accounting exercises concerning higher education and public investment needs to engage with fundamental questions on the objectives of government funding for HE and the creative industries but “should also develop more nuanced accounts of the relations between education, the economy and work in the twenty-first century” (Comunian and Brook 2019: 4). However, the same studies are often used to justify funding cuts or further devalue the role that creative education and creative talent play in our society. Others (Bloom 2020) have suggested that using earnings as a metric for estimating the value of a creative degree puts creative graduates at a disadvantage. They “have very different motivation profiles for entering work and are also more likely to be self-employed, operate as freelancers or run their own businesses than non-creative graduates” (Bloom 2020: 3). While in some countries like Singapore (Comunian and Ooi 2016), there has been a steady and growing investment in creative higher education, in others, like the UK, creative degrees and creative education in school have received cuts and criticisms. There has been not only underinvestment at the higher education level, but more worryingly, there have been cuts and reduction of art subject across school curricula (Bath et al. 2020; Cultural Learning Alliance 2017; Last 2017) in favour of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects. This will affect the talent pipeline towards creative higher education (England 2018)—potentially making it more exclusionary (Caizley 2019; Allen et al. 2013) and accessible only to families able to pay for private tuition. However, it also goes against the recommendation for integration of arts disciplines with science curricula, moving from STEM to Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths (STEAM) (Bakhshi and Mateos-Garcia 2014). Against some of the current policy trends—especially in the UK—one of the policy implications of our research is the need to value talent—specifically at its early development stages—as able to add to the diversity of contributions (social, economic and cultural) that individuals can make. Trying to single out the types of talent—or occupations—that have a strong economic output in our society reduces the value of talent as a whole. Talented individuals thrive on the diversity of

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cultures, experiences and opportunities that are presented to them; therefore, rather than singling out economic versus social or cultural contribution, policy should embrace the range of values on which talent builds on and contributes to.

8.2

Talent in Cities and Beyond: Future Creative Mobilities

In our book, we have unpacked the complex relationship between cities and talent. There are clear arguments for the role that cities have played in the past (Hall 1998) and will continue to play in bringing a range of talented workers together and the value that this agglomeration creates (Florida et al. 2008; Faggian et al. 2013) as discussed in chapters three and four. However, researchers have called for developing “a more nuanced and disaggregated understanding of how creativity is conceived and operationalised within specific diverse urban settings” (Borén and Young 2013: 1181). This echoes the work of others trying to capture the importance of regional and interregional mobilities of talent (Brydges and Hracs 2019), especially in relation to new affordances offered by technologies but also in connection to individuals’ different lifestyles and lifecycles. This includes the need to consider differences in individual freedoms to pursue entrepreneurial and creative opportunities within specific environments (Wilson and Martin 2015). Similarly, in recent years, we have observed a trend towards de-globalisation around the world. The rise of Trumpism and the UK’s exit from the European Union (Brexit) are clear examples of this, but it is also reflected in increasingly prominent right-wing populist narratives and politics (Van Bergeijk 2019; The Care Collective 2020). Perhaps most explicitly, Brexit has highlighted how the mobility and migration of talent is affected by broader political phenomena that are not entirely predictable, with potentially devastating consequences for creative talent who have relied on being able to “visit, tour, exhibit, perform and deliver services on a temporary basis around the world” (Norbury 2021). Researching the effect of these changes on talent mobility will be of paramount importance, because we could observe new geography of talent in Europe and new centres emerging. Finally, Tanghetti et al. (forthcoming), reflecting on the impact of Covid-19 on Milan and the Lombardy region, highlight how the pandemic has pushed many creative and cultural workers out of the city, and how the city might have become less attractive overall as a working environment. For many, the high level of social inequalities the city concentrates has meant the pandemic has affected some more than others (Baena-Díez et al. 2020). These arguments and the ones presented in chapter seven highlight the importance of considering how the voices of different components of talent might contribute to shaping our cities in the future. In particular, the importance of cities to reflect more broadly on their pool of talent—beyond the people who immediately

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live there to include people who temporarily produce or commute within them. Furthermore, major cities also need to reflect on the importance of connecting to the smaller regional centres to expand the range of opportunities they can offer as high rents might price out their local creative talent pool. In this expanded understanding, cities are not necessarily in competition with other cities, rather they need to think about synergies and collaborations that allow them to support sustainable creative careers and mobilities across a range of geographical scales.

8.3

Collective and Care-Full Support to Talent

In the book, primarily through the reflections offered by chapters six and seven, we have come to appreciate that creative talent faces specific challenges in the labour market which impact individuals (and their quality of life) but also have broader implications for making talent less diverse and inclusive that subsequently affect our cities and societies. Another challenge, as Valli (2017: 4) suggests, is that often “cultural workers might not have the power to determine the structural boundaries and hierarchies that organise urban society, including their own positioning in it”. The commitment and passion of creative talent are also the downfalls that push producers to accept unpaid or underpaid work and to further undervalue their contribution to society (Siebert and Wilson 2013). However, we also highlighted how talent has potentially offered opportunities to reflect on how to address these issues critically to find sustainable solutions and re-future its development. These can be summarised under two headings: collective approaches to creative talent and care for talent. In relation to collective approaches, we have discussed practices of solidarity and activism but also potentially new organisational forms such as cooperatives (Boyle and Oakley 2018), open-access studios (England 2020b) and in general, opportunities that bridge across creative and social modes of productions (Comunian et al. 2020). However, to be effective, collective responses also need to truly be for common gain, rather than groups of individuals working together for individual advancement and self-actualisation (Lewis 2020) in a way that continues to promote neoliberal culture. The ongoing pandemic has created further conditions in which “defensive self-interest thrives” (The Care Collective 2020: 4) and it will therefore be even more important to actively work against individualising tendencies in developing sustainable models for cultural and creative recovery. In relation to care for talent, it is important to consider interventions that protect workers rights but also ones that eliminate barriers in relation to gender, ethnic diversity and other forms of exclusion. Concerning workers rights, in the case of Milan, Tanghetti et al. (forthcoming) consider the erosion of creative workers’ rights when temporary contracts and bulimic careers (Pratt 2002) do not allow workers to be able to receive basic social security in case of unemployment or health issues. More attention needs to be placed on how talent—as part of the

8.3 Collective and Care-Full Support to Talent

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broader gig economy (Friedman 2014)—become commodities of our societies and are not give basic working rights that allow them to make a sustainable living in our highly competitive cities. In relation to barriers, it is important to unpack how the impact of neoliberalisation, as well as the impact of moments of crisis (such as the global financial crisis or the Covid-19 pandemic), does not affect talent equally. Some jobs are more protected than others, but also some individuals within those jobs also have more opportunities than others to be resilient. Women have been considered extensively within the talent literature (Conor et al. 2015; Dent 2019) as a weaker category often exposed to more pressures and undervalued (Shade and Jacobson 2015). Similarly, research on barriers for ethnically diverse talent and disabled individuals (Brook et al. 2018) exposes that the reality of creative talent and work within the knowledge economy is much less diverse than we would like to think. It is also essential that caring work—in addition to the work it supports—is adequately rewarded (economically and socially) and that its implementation and delivery does not continue to be disproportionately assigned to already disadvantaged and marginalised groups (The Care Collective 2020). These findings have put more pressure towards a radical rethinking at local, national and international level of the work that needs to happen for practices of care to fully enter the everyday practices of employers and workers within our talent economies (Alacovska 2019).

8.4

Policy Implications: Talent-Centred Policy-Making

The book hopes to contribute also to a better understanding of the role that policy can place in supporting talent. Often policy initiatives under broader umbrellas such as the “creative city” remain quite superficial in their understanding of talent and its needs and are not able to fully consider the breadth of talent (including many sectors across the economy) but also the range of values and objectives that drives talent in the creative and knowledge economy. Here, we outline that in order for policy to embrace a talent-centred approach fully, some key actions and practices need to be adopted (Fig. 8.1). These all need to contribute equally to sustainable talent-centred policy-making and should not be cherry-picked to focus on specific outputs. Firstly, it is vital that talent is supported in its development. This implies investing in opportunities and initiatives that support talent from the start, not only when talent can contribute to economic outputs or development. Higher education —within and beyond the campus (Comunian and Gilmore 2015)—as well as more informal educational settings (Jacobi 2017) plays an essential role but needs to remain fully inclusive. Local networks connecting talent in between education and work or at the initial stages of individuals’ careers also play a central role (England and Comunian 2016). These opportunities also offer more significant potential as

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Fig. 8.1 Key components of talent-centred policy-making

talent that is nurtured and engaged in local initiatives rather than simply attracted by specific—often temporary—opportunities might prove more “sticky” (Montanari et al. 2018). Secondly, policy needs to support the diversity of talent and its diverse value system. It is tempting for policy-makers—whether embracing or rejecting the neoliberal agenda for talent—to adopt a broader perspective of what talent is. While the neoliberal policy-maker might want to ignore the non-economic driven component of talent, policy-makers criticising neoliberal agendas might focus on the more socially oriented contribution of talent. However, talent within the creative and knowledge economy thrives on diversity—across sectors of the economy, diversity of cultures and even of career stages and objectives. Therefore, the most valuable interventions would need to be open to any contribution talent makes— whether economic, social or cultural—and to the kind of value systems that each worker is pursuing. While being open to diverse—and sometimes contradicting— voices and perspectives is certainly more challenging, the creative and knowledge economy sector are definitely aware of the importance that each of these components—economic, social and cultural—play in their supply chains and value

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systems. However, while they are aware, there is an ongoing struggle to articulate this as an interdependent and holistic ecosystem, with the tendency to continue to characterise success in economic terms. This connects further with the need to allow talent to have a voice in place-making and local policies. The diversity of perspectives that come from a broader understanding of talent—from experienced professionals to precarious artists—allows for different needs and values to also reflect on the urban environment and its development. For example, Borén and Young (2013) consider how forms of experimental artistic practices adopted in urban policy can offer an opportunity for “‘new conceptual spaces’ within which policy-makers and the diverse range of creative producers could interact in ways which allow for the reshaping of their potentially restrictive mundane professional attitudes and practices in a manner which would be more inclusive of varied forms of creativity” (p. 1811). Similarly, Romeiro (2017) highlights that creative activism can have an meaningful role “in policy learning and urban place-making” but also that the same policies and context “can also have a decisive effect on the activation of creative activism practices” (Romeiro 2017: 27). In the long term, this openness will add value to talent-centred policy-making. Talent-centred policy-making needs to recognise and value multiple relationship between talent and place (including mobilities). Creative and cultural workers as well as other professionals within the talent spectrum will come to value and contribute to a city or region in different ways, often also in connection with lifecycle needs and career opportunities (Tomaney and Bradley 2007). In this respect, large centres need to coordinate and cooperate with small centres or regional infrastructure to allow for talent to develop in relationship to its needs and objectives. The smaller centres might be essential to provide lower cost or larger infrastructure or other opportunities that talent might not be able to exploit in urban centres. Similarly, commuting or other forms of temporary mobility might be beneficial to both individuals and cities to support talent at different stages of their careers and with different purchasing powers—without excluding them from the advantages that agglomeration or larger pools of talent can offer. Finally, for talent-centred policy-making to work, emphasis needs to be placed on the care and support offered to talent through policies that engage with sustainable and inclusive jobs and careers. While in neoliberal economies, policy-making has shied away from interventions that regulate careers and jobs, it is crucial that policy indicates forms of best practices. Through interventions in the markets—commissioning, supply chain relations or administration of quasi-public institutions and similar—urban and regional policies can contribute to collectively defining what “good work” (Moran 2010) can be for talent. In the case of Milan (Tanghetti et al. forthcoming), creative and cultural workers were keen on engaging with local policy-makers to re-define their working conditions and more broadly to see the value of their work publically recognised. The opportunity for “creative city” policies to compete to define better opportunities and higher standard of contracts, living wages and professional development for the talent of their cities

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would turn the “zero-sum-game” of the current creative urban competition into a competition that creates value and change for many. While these conclusions have attempted to draw a roadmap for research and policy to embrace talent and engage with opportunities to support and reshape its future, there are certainly challenges ahead. It is for both academic and policy-makers to address those challenges together, making sure that research can add value to policy and that policy can test and develop academic ideas for the benefit of the cities and regions at the heart of their work.

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