Urban Development and the Politics of a Creative Class: Evidence from a Study of Artists

In this paper I critique the notion of ‘the creative class' and the fuzzy causal logic about its relationship to urban growth. I argue that in the creative class, occupations that exhibit distinctive spatial and political proclivities are bunched together, purely on the basis of educational attainment, and with little demonstrable relationship to creativity. I use a case study of artists, one element of the purported creative class, to probe this phenomenon, demonstrating that the formation, location, urban impact, and politics of this occupation are much more complex and distinctive than has been suggested previously. The spatial distribution of artists is a function of semiautonomous personal migration…