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Skills and cities: knowledge workers in Northwest-European cities

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  • Marco Bontje
  • Sako Musterd
  • Bart Sleutjes

Abstract

In the early 21st century, attracting knowledge workers has become an essential ingredient of urban competitiveness strategies. Such strategies are often based on theories claiming that cities should attract highly skilled talent to stay or become economically successful. Such theories have meanwhile met with considerable criticism and empirical evidence seems to make the assumptions of these theories doubtful. The most frequently seen argument is that talent moves to places where there are jobs. However, if the focus shifts from attracting to retaining or from 'necessary conditions' to additional preferences, new avenues for policy and research open up. In this article we will first review the debate so far about what attracts and retains knowledge workers. We will then add recent empirical evidence to this debate from a survey of knowledge workers in the city-regions of Amsterdam and Eindhoven. Our survey results make clear that 'knowledge workers' are a highly diverse category in which we should distinguish sub-groups with quite contrasting residential preferences. These preferences should be met to retain them to the area they settled in.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Bontje & Sako Musterd & Bart Sleutjes, 2017. "Skills and cities: knowledge workers in Northwest-European cities," International Journal of Knowledge-Based Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 8(2), pages 135-153.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijkbde:v:8:y:2017:i:2:p:135-153
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Simón Sánchez-Moral & Alfonso Arellano & Roberto Díez-Pisonero, 2018. "Interregional mobility of talent in Spain: The role of job opportunities and qualities of places during the recent economic crisis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(4), pages 789-808, June.
    2. Hongjia Liu & Yongheng Fang & Jiamin Liu & Yaqian Chen, 2023. "The Interaction of Cultural and Creative Industries Clusters and Regional Economic Resilience from the Perspective of Spatial Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, March.
    3. Arbolino, Roberta & Carlucci, Fabio & Cirà, Andrea & Yigitcanlar, Tan & Ioppolo, Giuseppe, 2018. "Mitigating regional disparities through microfinancing: An analysis of microcredit as a sustainability tool for territorial development in Italy," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 281-288.
    4. John Muzam, 2023. "The Challenges of Modern Economy on the Competencies of Knowledge Workers," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 14(2), pages 1635-1671, June.

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