Urban economies for the past twenty years have suffered considerable job erosion as import competition assails local and hinterland markets and export competition heightens. As a result, cities have been forced to specialize more than ever before. This paper hypothesizes that 1) cities have evolved considerable distinctiveness in economic functions in recent decades, 2) that urban hierarchy as a way of conceptualizing economic functions is breaking down in favor of specialization, 3) some second-tier (cities between 500,000 and 4.0 million in population size) are succeeding in the struggle to distinguish themselves while others are not, and 4) urban economic development policy can make a difference in these evolving patterns. The sizeable number of large cities in the U.S. makes it a great laboratory for study and experimentation.

Using occupations as a window into this phenomenon for U.S. metros, I demonstrate the extent to which traditional urban hierarchies are breaking down and how specialization is becoming more salient. In some lines of work media workers, financiers, architects, arts directors hierarchy still appears to hold sway, but for others engineers, management analysts, performing artists, landscape architects nonhierarchical patterns are more prominent. I show the degree of occupational variation among metros of a similar size New York, Los Angeles and Chicago included.

Using a set of artistic occupations visual artists, performing artists, writers and musicians, I show how varied their concentrations are across metros and how a dozen or so second tierﾝ American metros have distinguished themselves as artistic centers while others have not. The successful artistic cities are neither the largest nor the fastest growing. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco metro regions appear to have reversed a thirty year pattern of artistic decentralization in the U.S. and increased their lead over other U.S. metros as artistic enclaves, though this may be also due to losses in other types of economic activities in their economies. The presence of certain industries is juxtaposed with concentrations of artists, but high levels of self employment enable many artists to choose cities with amenities and a reasonable cost of living and to export their work to other regions. Differential migration rates show net flows from some cities to others and a fair degree of churning in some of the largest arts cities.

I conclude that heightened distinctiveness among cities requires the cultivation of specializations and selective targeting. Using the arts as a case study, I suggest the ways in which cities have in the past, and can in the future, invest in artists, arts facilities and education in ways that will enhance artistic talent and its payoff. (Authors Abstract)

[This paper was presented at the Conference on the Resurgent City, London School of Economics, April, 2004.]

The author looks at occupations in U.S. metro regions to demonstrate the extent to which traditional urban hierarchies are breaking down and how specialization is becoming more salient. He then focuses on the various concentrations of artistic occupations across metro regions in America.