Does the Creative Class Live in Large Cities?

Creative cities, an original and attractive concept of urban growth generated a rich debate in the scientific community. The creative class is considered to be a driving force of development and cities should seek to attract and retain it, because where creative workers live, companies locate and this process spurs the urban growth. Cities should focus on activities which create attractive urban life, and promote diversity, openness and tolerance of their urban community. The concept of creative cities undoubtedly suggests new options for addressing urban development, but there is an extensive critical discussion of its validity. The concept of creative class and creative cities from Richard Florida originated from the empirical research in the U.S., and large number of studies have examined whether the same processes works in other economies, especially in the EU countries. This paper aims to explore one of the key processes, on which the concept relies, which is the location of creative class in cities. Using the data from the census of inhabitants in Slovakia (2011) and the internal migration database (1996 2011), we analyze the location and migration of the creative class among Slovak cities. Our exploratory analysis shows that Slovakia is specific for a low rate of urbanization, domination of suburbanisation processes, and only limited mobility of creative class. In general, cities in Slovakia have net population loss of creative class and there are only few exceptions. The whole process of spatial distribution of the creative class is heavily dominated by the capital city of Bratislava and its surrounding satellites.