Bohemia and economic geography

This paper examines the geography of bohemia and the relationships between it, human capital, and high-technology industries. The underlying hypothesis is that the presence and concentration of bohemians in an area creates an environment or milieu that attracts other types of talented or high human capital individuals. The presence of such human capital in turn attracts and generates innovative, technology-based industries. To explore these factors, this paper introduces a new measure--the bohemian index --that directly measures the bohemian population at the MSA level. Statistical research examines the relationships between geographic concentrations of bohemians, human capital, and high-technology industry concentration. The findings support this hypothesis. The geography of bohemia is highly concentrated. The results indicate positive and significant relationships between the bohemian index and concentrations of high human capital individuals and between the bohemian index and concentrations of high-technology industry. The relationship between the bohemian index and high-technology concentrations is particularly strong. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.

[1]  Robert E. Park,et al.  The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the City Environment , 1915, American Journal of Sociology.

[2]  M. Gordon.  The Concept of the Sub-Culture and Its Application , 1947 .

[3]  J. Jacobs.  The Death and Life of Great American Cities , 1962 .

[4]  Robert N. Wilson,et al.  Bohemian Versus Bourgeois: French Society and the French Man of Letters in the Nineteenth Century. , 1965 .

[5]  C. Graña.  Bohemian versus bourgeouis : French society and the French man of letters in the nineteenth century , 1965 .

[6]  Daniel A. Bell,et al.  The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism , 1976 .

[7]  Rick Boyer,et al.  Places Rated Almanac: Your Guide to Finding the Best Places to Live in America , 1981 .

[8]  Rick Boyer,et al.  Places r・a・t・e・d almanac : your guide to finding the best places to live in North America , 1993 .

[9]  N. Smith.  The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City , 1997 .

[10]  M. Miles.  Art, Space and the City : Public Art and Urban Futures , 1997 .

[11]  Thomas Frank,et al.  The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism , 1997 .

[12]  J. Hannigan.  Fantasy City: Pleasure and Profit in the Postmodern Metropolis , 1998 .

[13]  Ken Gelder,et al.  The subcultures reader , 1999 .

[14]  Joel Kotkin,et al.  The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape , 2000 .

[15]  E. Glaeser,et al.  Consumer City Consumer City Consumer City , 2000 .

[16]  John Seabrook,et al.  NoBrow: The Culture of Marketing - the Marketing of Culture , 2000 .

[17]  D. Brooks.  Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There , 2000 .

[18]  T. Clark,et al.  The city as an entertainment machine , 2001 .