In this paper we analyse the intensity and extent of agglomeration and co‐agglomeration of creative industries (CIs) in the metropolitan area of Barcelona (MAB). To do so, we use firm‐level geo‐located data to calculate distance‐based M and m functions of agglomeration and co‐agglomeration. Our results show that CIs are relatively more agglomerated than non‐CIs at short distances, and that each individual CI sector displays high levels of agglomeration (especially symbolic‐based sectors). Also, the co‐agglomeration of CIs and Non‐CIs is only observed for micro‐firms and that there is significant co‐agglomeration among symbolic‐based CI sectors. Finally, we confirm the role of the city‐centre of Barcelona as a magnet for CIs.

The present paper investigates the location patterns and the effects co-working spaces (CWS) generate on the urban context. The focus is on Barcelona, one of the most important creative hubs in Europe in terms of knowledge-based, creative, digital, and sharing economy, and the city hosting the largest number of co-working spaces in Spain. The paper addresses three main questions: (1) Which are the location patterns of co-working spaces in Barcelona? (2) Do CWS agglomerate in the same areas? And, (3) Do CWS coagglomerate with the creative industries (CIs)? To do that, this paper uses open data on Barcelona neighbourhoods’ socioeconomic composition provided by the Statistics Department of the Council of Barcelona and micro-geographic data of private CWS and creative labs in Barcelona. By using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Kd functions of agglomeration and coagglomeration, results show that CWS are highly concentrated in central areas of Barcelona where there are greater chances to meet customers and suppliers, the proximity to urban amenities and the fact of being associated to a specific place-image. Moreover, they coagglomerate with CIs firms, especially with symbolic and synthetic knowledge-based CIs. These results are relevant when assessing the actual goal of urban policies in Barcelona.

Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations, sustainability has been a key priority for European governments. While previous studies have investigated the associations between indicators of sustainable development, few have directly considered a multidimensional approach to assess and compare the performance of regions in terms of sustainable development. As such, a comprehensive assessment of regional sustainable performance is thus still needed. In this paper, the concept of sustainability relies on the construction of six composite indices (environment and natural resources, energy transition, sustainable mobility, economic dynamism, social cohesion and solidarity, and governance and citizenship) with the aim to provide an evaluation framework for empirically comparing the performance of the 96 metropolitan French Departments. Each dimension is explored by spatial autocorrelation analysis and Hierarchical Ascending Classification (HAC) to classify French Departments providing five different regional profiles of sustainable development. The findings make it possible to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the departments in the implementation of sustainable development. This approach provides the bases for a systematic monitoring of sustainable development policies at the regional scale.

This paper focuses on the creative industries – those industries that produce and commercialise creative goods and services – and the role played by the existing spatial distribution and agglomeration economies of these kinds of activities in their location decisions. Our main statistical source is the Register of Manufacturing Establishments of Catalonia (REIC), which has plant-level microdata on the location of new plants. We use count data models to show that location determinants are quite similar in both creative and non-creative industries and that both industries are positively influenced by the specialisation level of creative industries. Moreover, our results provide evidence that an unobserved ‘creative milieu’ has a considerable impact on attracting firms.