Florida’s “Sonic City”

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?

 

Florida’s unwitting support for redefining the music ’scene’ as a cluster…

While trying to perform some research on existing music clusters (not going so well right now!), I came across a video on Youtube, showing Dr Richard Florida’s testimonty before the Joint Committee on the Arts.

I’d highly recommend that you watch the video, but one of his points was that there are three types of creativity: technological, economic, and (as he puts it, “importantly”) artistic and cultural creativity. When we look at the city of Toronto, and specifically the economic/industry landscape in this city, we can account for all three types of creativity. More specifically, examples exist of these three types of creativity that can be intrinsically linked to a Toronto music cluster.

Technological: Toronto DJ Institute

Economic: Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund (watch for more in a future blog)

Artistic/Cultural: George Brown College’s renowned music program, spawning both independent and mainstream artists, thereby supporting cluster growth

Within the music scene, we can find complete creativity, as defined by Richard Florida. These diverse sources of creativity could be the foundation for sustainability of a cluster that doesn’t exactly fit the definition we’ve become accustomed to in our textbooks and lecture sessions.

 

Wait a minute….define cluster for me.

Very few would bat an eye when ICT is mentioned in conjunction with Waterloo. The same can be said about biotechnology in Vancouver, and fashion in Toronto. But how does music fit into all this?

Wikipedia gives us a good starting-point for discussing clusters.

This term industry cluster, also known as a business cluster, competitive cluster, or Porterian cluster, was introduced and the term cluster popularized by Michael Porter in The Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990). The importance of economic geography was also brought to attention by Paul Krugman in Geography and Trade (1991). Cluster development has since become a focus for many government programs. The underlying concept, which economists have referred to has agglomeration economies, dates back to 1890, and the work of Alfred Marshall. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster)

Interesting to note the inclusion of Porter in the definition – and this is were the waters become muddied when defining a music cluster. Clusters – in their original form as defined by Porter – require competitiveness (specifically strong competitive environments in the cluster’s geographic region); however, most musicians would shudder at the mention of competition.

The world of arts, and specifically music, is one of elitist inclusion. Those who are musically gifted find themselves automatically enrolled in an elite group of people – groups that congregate in music stores and underground venues to hear the latest and greatest. That being said, when the inner circle has been penetrated, support networks begin to materialize. The music scene has historically been self-sufficient, with music stores providing rising stars with equipment loans, and social networks fueling ticket sales at CD launch parties.

Michael Porter would argue that competition should strengthen the music scene; however, my guess is that Richard Florida would suggest that collaboration within the music scene can be the fuel for this developing cluster. While this cluster is still in it’s infancy, it could serve to be an excellent case study on the viability of an economic cluster without the influence of competition (at least competition as framed by our historical economic learnings).