To explore why creative industries like music continue to cluster, we analyze the economic geography of musicians and the recording industry in the U.S. from 1970 to 2000. We find that scale and scope economies play a role in shaping the clustering and concentration of musicians and music industry firms. There is evidence of a shift away from regionally-clustered, genre-specific music scenes, such as Memphis or Detroit, toward the largest centers like New York City and Los Angeles.

Authors
Richard Florida, Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman School of Management
Charlotta Mellander, The Prosperity Institute of Scandinavia, Jönköping International Business School
Kevin Stolarick, Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman School of Management

Published in: Environment and Planning A, Volume 42, Number 4, April 2010, pages 785 – 804

Subjects: Music, Agglomeration, Clusters, Economies of Scale, Economies of Scope

Related Projects: Creative Industries & the Creative Economy, Mega-regions, Music & the Entertainment Economy

Available through Pion Journals (Restricted Access).

Previous working paper versions are also available: June 2009 (PDF) and February 2009 (PDF).

Abstract
Where do musicians locate, and why do creative industries such as music continue to cluster? This paper analyzes the economic geography of musicians and the recording industry in the U.S. from 1970 to 2000 to shed light on the locational dynamics of music and creative industries more broadly. We examine the role of scale and scope economies in shaping the clustering and concentration of musicians and music industry firms. We argue that these two forces are bringing about a transformation in the geography of both musicians and music industry firms, evidenced in a shift away from regionally-clustered, genre-specific music scenes, such as Memphis or Detroit, toward larger regional centers like New York City and Los Angeles, which offer large markets for music employment and concentration of other artistic and cultural endeavors which increase demand for musicians. We use population and income to probe for scale effects, and concentrations of other creative and artistic industries to test for scope effects, while including a range of control variables in our analysis. We use lagged variables to determine if certain places are consistently more successful at fostering concentations of musicians and the music industry and test for path dependency. We find some role for scale and scope effects and that both musicians and the music industry are concentrating in a relatively small number of large regional centers.