Elizabeth Currid and Sarah Williams: Social scientists have long sought to understand the cultural production system. Such research elucidates the importance of the social milieu to cultural industries. We capture aggregate patterns of the social milieu and the geographical form it takes. We use a unique data set, Getty Images, and geo-coded over 6000 events and 300,000 photographic images taken in Los Angeles and New York City, and conducted GIS and spatial statistics to analyze macro geographical patterns. 1) Social milieus have nonrandom spatial clustering.
2) These clustering tendencies may reinforce themselves.
3) Event enclaves demonstrate homogeneous spatial patterns across all cultural industries.
4) The recursive nature of place-branding may partially explain resulting cultural hubs.
5) The media also clusters.
These results have unintended consequences for our understanding of clustering more generally and place-branding. The use of Getty data provides a new spatial dimension through which to understand cultural industries and city geographic patterns.
Richard Florida: Globalization is not flattening the world; in fact, place is increasingly relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. Where we live determines the jobs and careers we have access to, the people we meet, and the "mating markets" in which we participate. And everything we think we know about cities and their economic roles is up for grabs.
From Karen Abbott's "Sin in the Second City": A young man walking up the stairs to a bordello encounters his father coming down the stairs. "Dad!" he says. "What're you doing here?" "For two dollars," his father replies, "why bother your mother?"
The Geography of Buzz | 
