This research is in line with studies on the values produced by culture and their impact on urban dynamics. We explore the extent to which cultural amenities influence interurban location choices, particularly among students, who constitute a population which is more mobile than the average in France.
The Rise of Culture as a Residential Location Factor
Since the 1990s, many former industrial cities, such as Bilbao in Spain, Nantes in France and several towns in northern England have relied on cultural policies to trigger urban regeneration in a post-industrial context. One of the underlying ideas is that, by improving the local living environment through cultural offerings, this will attract skilled individuals who will renew the local labour supply and generate new economic development dynamics. Local cultural assets not only increase opportunities for leisure activities, but also shape a culturally oriented local ambiance. The term “cultural amenity” refers to these two benefits that contribute to improving the living environment.
What do we know about culture as a location factor?
Surveys results show that labour market conditions (job opportunities and wages) remain the main location factors, followed by proximity to the social network (i.e. family ties) and former location during higher education. Living environment appears at best secondary (Brown and Scott 2012; Niedomysl and Hansen 2010).
However, other studies show that the impact of cultural amenities can vary depending on the category of individuals being studied. Thus, we note a positive correlation between the concentration of skilled individuals and cultural offerings in cities (Falck et al. 2011). Other studies show that cultural amenities have a stronger explicative power among the most highly skilled compared to natural ones that mostly impact on retired people’s choices (Clark 2003).
What about the students?
Very few studies measure the impact of local amenities on their location choices. The studies that have examined this question all point to a preference for urban environments among young graduates (Whisler et al. 2008; Woldoff et al. 2011), but there is no evidence on which dimensions of the living urban environment might explain a preference for one city or another, neither of the role culture might play in this choice.
How did we do to answer the question
We provide some answers to this question by measuring the extent to which different dimensions of the living environment can impact students’ future choice of location after graduation.
To do so, a survey was carried out from November 2017 to April 2018 among 737 students in Angers (France) who were about to graduate. They were asked to choose their future location between several hypothetical cities. They had to assume that the chances of integration into the labour market were identical between cities, which could only be differentiated by 5 attributes relating to public policies in terms of living environment and one attribute relating to real estate prices:
- A cultural budget (theatres, museums, festivals) of varying size;
- A green space budget (parks, gardens), higher or lower;
- A higher or lower sports budget;
- A higher or lower childcare budget;
- A greater or lesser quantity of bicycle paths in the city;
- The higher or lower rents per square metres.
In each choice task, individuals are asked to choose their preferred option from among those proposed (See Figure 1): a reference city used as a status quo describing a city with average budget levels and average prices and two cities “A” and “B” offering higher and lower budgets and prices for the various attributes.
Figure 1: Example of a choice task from the survey
By multiplying choices between hypothetical cities that combine these elements in different ways, it is possible to assess which attribute has the greatest impact on choices.
Culture matters, but not equally for everyone
The results show that, on average, all the dimensions of the living environment have a significant impact on the future location choice and that the budget dedicated to culture ranks second, after the green spaces one and before the sports one.
By considering the individual characteristics of students, this hierarchy can be refined. Students enrolled in Humanities, Languages and Law, Economics, Management, and Tourism studies value more the cultural attribute than Science, Engineering, and Health students. Not surprisingly, students with higher cultural engagement and awareness about possible local benefits of culture associate a higher value with the cultural attribute than others. Even the students least engaged in cultural activities at the time of the survey positively value culture in their future choice of location, which supports the idea that they attribute a non-use value to culture (due to altruism or anticipation of potential future personal use).
What does this mean for policymakers?
The results support the idea that the evaluation of cultural policies should take into account the potential effects on local urban dynamics. Indeed, cities that invest in cultural infrastructure can gain a competitive advantage by attracting young graduates and shifting the local population towards more skilled individuals.
However, these policies could also have negative long-term effects, such as rising rents, gentrification and congestion. Thus, urban planning should consider rent control, social housing and public transport policies to manage urban sprawl and social cohesion.
References
Brown, W. M., & Scott, D. M. (2012). Human Capital Location Choice: Accounting for Amenities and Thick Labor Markets. Journal of Regional Science, 52 (5), 787–808.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.2012.00772.x
Clark, T. N. (2003). Urban amenities: Lakes, opera, and juice bars: Do they drive development? In T.Nichols Clark (Ed.), The city as an entertainment machine (Research in Urban Policy, Vol. 9) (pp. 103–140). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Falck, O., Fritsch, M., & Heblich, S. (2011). The phantom of the opera: Cultural amenities, human capital, and regional economic growth. Labour Economics, 18 (6), 755–766.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2011.06.004
Niedomysl, T., & Hansen, H. K. (2010). What matters more for the decision to move: Jobs versus amenities. Environment and Planning. A, 42 (7), 1636. https://doi.org/10.1068/a42432
Whisler, R. L., Waldorf, B. S., Mulligan, G. F., & Plane, D. A. (2008). Quality of life and the migration of the college-educated: A life-course approach. Growth and Change, 39 (1), 58–94.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2257. 2007.00405.x
Woldoff, R. A., DeCola, T., & Litchfield, R. C. (2011). The aspirational creative class: Urban residential preferences of college students in creative majors. City, Culture and Society, 2 (2), 75–83.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2011. 04.002
About the article
Mouate, O., Travers, M. The impact of cultural amenities on inter-urban location: a discrete choice experiment on French students. J Cult Econ 48, 575–614 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10824-024-09516-y
About the authors
Olivier Mouate is Assistant Professor of Economics at University of Angers, France
Muriel Travers is Full Professor of Economics at University of Nantes, France
About the image
Accroche-Cœurs Festival 2017, “Octopus attacks”, art installation by Luke Egan and Pete Hamilton at the Grand-Théâtre d’Angers, France. © Ville d’Angers — Th. Bonnet//Luke Egan and Pete Hamilton. Courtesy of the city of Angers.
