Neighborhood diversity plays a limited role in the residential preferences of creative class workers in Chicago

Recent theories about the rise of the ‘creative class’ suggest that skilled workers in knowledge-intensive jobs are attracted to cities which contain cultural amenities and a diverse population. In new research using Chicago census tract data, Bradley Bereitschaft and Rex Cammack test this theory. They find that neighborhood diversity is a weak predictor of where creative class workers chose to live, and that more traditional factors, such as home values, schools, and transport were more likely to predict a higher proportion of creative class workers in a neighborhood.