In keeping with my previous report, I submit for your personal edification a second Richard Florida paper, this one titled “Sonic City” (view Florida’s Report here). While Florida noted the lack of quantitative research existing on music clusters in the previous report I discussed, it seems as though he’s working to change this, alongside co-author Scott Jackson.
Our research examines the changing economic geography of the music industry over the past several decades. It does so by tracking the location of musicians and music groups from 1970 to 2004 in 31 large U.S. metropolitan areas. It also provided a more detailed cross‐sectional analysis of the geography of music employment and music‐related business establishments for all U.S. combined statistical areas, core based statisical areas and counties in 2004. Our analysis suggests that the music industry is simultaneously becoming geographically both more concentrated and more spread out. On the one hand, New York and Los Angeles remain dominant centers, and a larger share of musicians overall is concentrated in fewer metros than in 1970. Furthermore, Nashville has emerged over time as a major center for the music industry alongside New York and Los Angeles. On the other hand, we find evidence of the persistence of smaller musical centers and scenes in smaller communities such as Billings, Montana. We suggest that these tendencies reflect the ongoing economic and spatial restructuring of the music industry brought on by technological changes which have lowered the costs for producing, distributing and consuming music.
The paper is an extremely interesting read, especially for those that love to crunch numbers. I found the following diagram interesting, showing a heavy concentration of music-related employment in the US mid- and north-east…perhaps this bodes well for Toronto’s emerging cluster?
