How to Attract and Retain Creative Class

Nowadays, relatively high attention of public policies, also from the EU point of view, is paid to creative territories and the promotion of the creative class. However, very few published studies have been conducted about the mobility and behaviour of the creative class in the spatial-development context. To contribute to the deeper research of this issue the paper analyses the results of published empirical studies on the behaviour and mobility of the creative class in various types of territories and compares them with the behaviour and location of the creative class in the Slovak Republic. Subsequently, reflecting the key findings it proposes the public policy recommendations that should contribute to attracting and retaining the creative class as an integral driving force of regional or local development.

In the empirical studies, the compared elements were the main research questions / hypotheses and results, the definition of the creative class, used methods, the factors of creative-class migration, and the policy recommendations, if they were proposed. Special attention was devoted to the issues of creative-class behaviour and localisation factors in the Slovak Republic based on the previous research findings as well as our own research results.

All studies confirm that the mobility of the creative class is only a little bit higher than that of non-creatives. Among the key factors playing a dominant role in the selection of the actual place of residence are personal trajectories, followed by good employment opportunities. That is why the strategies of public policy should aim at retaining the creative class, fostering the creative and diverse climate by developing new higher-education institutions, new creative-subject incubators, supporting networks and partnerships; then the economic and social benefits of the creative class for the territories may be expected.