Two Cities, Five Industries: Similarities and Differences Within and Between Cultural Industries in New York and Los Angeles

Recent work has pointed towards the possibility that industries are not tied to their specific urban location as much as to their linkages with particular types of infrastructure and to their social and economic networks. Industries have similar clustering patterns even in very different cities. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data, we conducted GIS analysis to compare Los Angeles and New York City, two very different types of geographies and urban environments. Three distinct findings emerged: 1) When the cultural industries are disaggregated into distinct industrial sectors (art, fashion, music), important differences between them emerge. 2) Each type of cultural industry "behaves" similarly in LA and NYC despite differences in scale, geography and urban configuration. 3) Some cultural industries tend to co-locate (e.g. art with design), and this co-location remains constant in both locations. The analysis enables us to suggest ways in which cultural industries can aid in economic development. Introduction Planners and geographers have long been interested in how space (and place) impacts economic functions and vice versa (Massey 1984; Piore and Sable 1984; Storper 1994). It has long been assumed that geography shapes industrial dynamics. Yet recent work has pointed towards the possibility that industries are not tied to the urban form as much as to their distinct linkages with particular types of infrastructure and their social and economic networks (Saxenian 1994; Porter 1998). Instead, industries have similar clustering patterns even in cities that have very diverse overall typologies (Currid and Connelly 2008).