Bangkok, Thailand
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF CREATIVE INDUSTRIES IN BANGKOK BY APIWAT RATANAWARAHA AND SARIT TIYAWONGSUWAN
INTRODUCTION Academics and policymakers in many countries are increasingly interested in the role of creative industry in spurring economic growth at the national and city levels. Several researchers and international organizations argue that creative industries are becoming the engine behind economic competitiveness and prosperity. Several empirical works show that creative industries are the most innovative sectors in the economy and demonstrate faster than average growth potential. Policymakers in many countries have formulated policies that aim to foster their creative economy at the national and city levels, including those in Southeast Asia. î ˘e academic interest in the role of creative industries in urban competitiveness has surged since Florida published his book on the creative class and cities. As in any economic activity, creative industries have spatial dimensions. We could easily observe that creative rms tend to agglomerate not only in certain cities, but speci c areas of those cities. Such agglomeration patterns are shaped by certain economic forces and location-speci c factors. Understanding the basic spatial patterns of creative rms and the reasons behind such patterns is an essential step in formulating any relevant policies that aim to promote the development of creative industries. Spatial agglomeration of Bangkok By mapping locations of rms in three creative industries in Bangkok, namely, soî‚?ware, advertising and architectural industries, we are able to locate the sub-districts with the greatest number of firms and highest densities in the past and present. We nd that the three industries
creative industries in currently agglomerate the most in the sub-districts that have been the key business areas of Bangkok since the late 1980s. Prior to that, the major locations of advertising and architectural rms were in the inner and historic areas of Bangkok. Khlong Tan and Khlong Toei Nuea sub-districts 1
Bangkok, Thailand
along Sukhumvit road now have the highest densities of creative rms in Bangkok. On the other hand, the greatest densities of software firms are found in Wachiraprayaban and Surawong sub-districts, followed by Khlong Tan and Khlong Toei Nuea subdistricts. Most of the areas with the highest densities of creative rms are along Sukhumvit and Silom roads where the transportation accessibility is the greatest in the city. e advertising and architectural rms share similar core areas, which the soware industry tends to agglomerate elsewhere (Figure 1). The locational shift of creative firms corresponds to the changes in urban development in Bangkok where the core business areas have moved away from the inner historic areas to the newer areas in the east of the city. e levels of agglomeration of advertising and architectural rms have changed as well. Table 1 shows the aggregate shares of the top 5 sub-districts in Bangkok ranked by number of rms. It is evident that the two industries have become more dispersed in Bangkok, particularly the architectural industry in which the top 5 sub-districts in 2008 account for less than 25%, compared to more than 50% in 1968.
Figure 1 Spatial pattern of creative industies in Bangkok, 2008 Table 1 Aggregate shares of the top 5 creative sub-districts in Bangkok
locational factors that contribute to localization and urbanization economies that bene t the creative rms. In our questionnaire survey, the creative rms in the three industries in Bangkok were asked to rate the importance of 31 locational variables. These variables are aggregated to (1) information/communication infrastructure, (2) transportation access, (3) urban facilities, (4) production factors, (5) busiImportance of ness knowledge/information, (6) locational factors for localization economies, and (7) creative industries In order to examine the reasons reputation of the location (see behind the agglomerative pat- Table 2). terns, we pay attention to the 2
Of the seven general categories, Information/communication infrastructure factors are the most important to creative firms in the three industries in Bangkok, followed by access to transportation infrastructure and urban facilities. Of all the speci c factors, the access to the telephone network, internet, and road access for personal cars are the most crucial. is result is applicable to both the overall picture of the three industries, as well as to each individual industry. As expected, the soware industry considers information/communication infrastructure as the most impor-
Bangkok, Thailand
Table 2 Importance of locational factors to advertising, architectural, and soware rms
tant among all variables. ese factors generate urbanization economies that bene t creative industries that agglomerate in speci c areas of the city.
not rate the proximity to clients, suppliers and competitors as important as other locational factors that contribute to urbanization economies. Reputation of the area is perceived as relatively bene cial, although not as much as other factors mentioned earlier. e soware industry regards the reputation more bene cial than the other two industries.
Although presence of other businesses in the same area is relatively important, the factors that contribute to localization economies in general are not perceived as bene cial to creative rms in Bangkok. e question- We also compare each factor’s naire respondents on average do level of importance as perceived
by the top 50 rms and the rest. We nd that, for the most part, both groups of firms consider the same factors as important to their businesses. ere are a few items that they consider differently. Large advertising and architectural firms rate transportation infrastructure as very important, while smaller rms rate it as less important. This could be attributed to the office locations. As large firms need larger office space, they have to find more affordable locations usually outside the core areas. e core areas are where there is the greatest agglomeration of rms in that industry and usually have the greatest transportation accessibility. Because of such a trade-off, transportation access is considered a critical locational factor for large rms, particularly road access for private cars. e availability and cost of labor are important factors but not as important as other production 3
Bangkok, Thailand
factors, presumably because gen- a questionnaire survey indicate eral and speci c labor is mobile that the most important locawithin the city. tional factors for creative rms in Bangkok are information/ Using the Analysis of Variance communication infrastructure, (ANOVA), we test whether the transport infrastructure, proximlocational bene ts are the same ity to city center, and access to for all the three groups of crea- general and specialized knowltive rms. e results indicate edge, respectively. is indicates that the differences among the the importance of urbanization three creative industries are not economies. statistically signi cant. In other words, creative rms in the three industries similarly bene t from the locational factors. CONCLUSION We have shown that select creative industries agglomerate in specific areas of Bangkok, although the level of agglomeration has decreased over time. As the city grows and expands, the creative rms disperse to other areas of the city. The software industry has the highest degree of spatial agglomeration, followed by advertising and architectural rms respectively. e core areas of the architectural and advertising rms have moved away from the older parts of the city to the business areas to the east since the 1980s. is locational shi corresponds to the change in the city’s overall structure and the emergence of the current central business districts. We also nd that large rms in advertising and architectural sectors are less spatially concentrated than smaller firms, and tend to be located outside the core areas of the industry. The results from
CONTACT INFORMATION Apiwat Ratanawaraha (PhD) DEPARTMENT OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING, FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE, CHULALONGKORN UNIVERSITY Phayathai Road, Patumwan, Bangkok, 10330, Thailand +66-2-218-4441 +66-2-218-4440 (Fax) http://www.cuurp.org rapiwat@gmail.com
With support from