Location of creative workplaces

Facilitating, attracting and retaining the creative industries to their cities is a top priority of local governments. Flexible workplaces, temporary locations, creative business complexes, co-working spaces, hubs, incubators and start-up accelerators offer workplaces more suitable to the flexible and mobile working patterns of the creative professionals. In spite of the ongoing debate regarding hard and soft location factors, knowledge on the location factors for workplace decision by creative organizations is limited. By conducting a quantitative research, this thesis aims to test the relative importance of hard, cluster and soft location factors for creative organization in Amsterdam. In contrast to the expectations, survey results show that the majority of respondents work at home or office buildings. Data analysis of 176 respondents’ scores showed significant differences in the relevance of hard, soft and cluster factors. Limited significant results were found in the comparison of workplaces. Social capital and urban location factors are the most dominant factors in determining the decision to locate in Amsterdam. The choice for location within the city, the workplace, is determined by a combination of hard and soft location factors. Creative organizations appreciate the urban characteristics of the greater Amsterdam cluster more than they attach importance to proximity of others in the workplace. When it comes to workplace decisions, economic rationale and practical considerations are dominant. As a result, most of the self-employed creative freelancers in Amsterdam stick to their home offices instead of the flexible and creative workspaces Amsterdam offers.