What Happens When Data Lies? A Case Study of Measuring City Attractiveness in Romania
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4335/20.3.565-580(2022)Keywords:
city attractiveness, Romania, population growth, data reliabilityAbstract
The last decades have seen an increse in the number of studies that investigate the factors that make cities attractive. This was also the initial aim of the present study. However, the initial results were striking. Cities that do not possess the characteristics that are usually attributed to attractive cities were ranked among the most attractive ones in Romania. Thus, it became evident that the first step should be to determine which is the most appropriate measure of attractiveness in the Romanian context. The results show that in Romania the historical and legal context, as well as the current way in which official data are provided affect the reliability of well-known measures of city attractiveness. More specifically, international migrants who regain their citizenship artificially inflate the data regarding population growth and migration for cities in the Easter part of the country. The study provides recommendations for improving the capacity of municipalities to take evidence-based decisions.
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Barreira, A. P., Nunes, L. C., Guimarães, M. H., & Panagopoulos, T. (2019) Satisfied but thinking about leaving: the reasons behind residential satisfaction and residential attractiveness in shrinking Portuguese cities, International Journal of Urban Sciences, 23(1), pp. 67-87.
Bruneckienė, J., Zykienė, I. & Stankevičius, V. (2016) Critical Analysis of City Attractiveness Factors in Lithuania – Poland Cross-Border Regions: The Viewpoints of Businessmen and Youth, Journal of Geography, Politics and Society, 6(2), pp. 45–58.
Buch, T., Hamann, S., Niebuhr, A., & Rossen, A. (2014) What Makes Cities Attractive? The Determinants of Urban Labour Migration in Germany, Urban Studies, 51(9), pp. 1960-1978.
Clifton, N. (2008) The “Creative Class” in the UK: An Initial Analysis, Geografiska Annaler Series B Human Geography, 90(1), pp. 63-82.
Cristea, M., Mare, C., Moldovan, C., China, A., Farole, T., Vințan, A., Park, J., Garrett, K. P. & Ionescu-Heroiu, M. (2017) Magnet Cities: Migration and Commuting in Romania (Washington, DC: World Bank).
De Beer, J., Raymer, J., van der Erf, R. & van Wissen, L. (2010) Overcoming the Problems of Inconsistent International Migration data: A New Method Applied to Flows in Europe, European Journal of Population, 26(4), pp. 459-481.
Earnhart, D. (2002) Combining Revealed and Stated Data to Examine Housing Decisions Using Discrete Choice Analysis, Journal of Urban Economics, 51(1), pp. 143–169.
Fattakhov, R. V., Nizamutdinov, M.M. & Oreshnikov, V.V. (2020) Assessment of the Attractiveness of Large Russian Cities for Residents, Tourists, and Business, Regional Research of Russia, 10(4), pp. 538–548.
Ferguson, M., Ali, K., M. Olfert, R. & Partridge, M., (2008) Voting with Their Feet: Jobs versus Amenities, Growth and Change, 38(1), pp. 77–110.
Florida, R. & Mellander, C. (2014) The Rise of Skills: Human Capital, the Creative Class and Regional Development, In: Fischer, M.M. & Nijkamp, P. (eds.) Handbook of Regional Science (Berlin: Springer), pp. 317-329.
Florida, R. (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class: and how it's transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life (New York: Basic Books).
Frenkel, A., Bendit, E., & Kaplan, S. (2013) Residential location choice of knowledge-workers: The role of amenities, workplace and lifestyle, Cities, (35), pp. 33-41.
Garretsen, H., & Marlet, G. (2016) Amenities and the attraction of Dutch cities, Regional Studies, 51(5), pp. 724-736.
Glaeser, E.L., Kolko, J., & Saiz, A. (2000) Consumer City (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Institute of Economic), available at: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/glaeser/files/consumer_city.pdf (October 11, 2021).
Kährik, A., Temelová, J., & Kadarik, K. (2016) What attracts people to inner city areas? The cases of two post-socialist cities in Estonia and the Czech Republic, Urban Studies, 53(2), pp. 355-372.
Kourtit, K., Nijkamp, P., & Wahlström, M.H. (2020) How to make cities the home of people – a ‘soul and body’ analysis of urban attractiveness, Land Use Policy, 111, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104734.
Kwiatek-Sołtys, A. & Mainet, H. (2014) Quality of Life and Attractiveness of Small Towns: A Comparison of France and Poland, Quaestiones Geographicae, 33(2), pp. 103-113.
Lundmark, M., & Pugh, R. (2020) Economic development and place attractiveness: The case of Karlskoga in Sweden, Siirtolaisuus-Migration, 46(1), pp. 21-29.
Macharis, C. & Keseru, I. (2018) Rethinking mobility for a human city, Transport Reviews, 38(3), pp. 275-278.
Mazilu, S., Incaltarau, C. & Kourtit, K., The Creative Economy Through the Lens of Urban Resilience: An Analysis of Romanian Cities, Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences, 59 E/2020, pp. 77-103, http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/tras.59E.5.
Nazarie, I. (2019) „Acasă” doar în buleti. 1.700 de moldoveni într-o garsonieră. Nimeni nu i-a văzut vreodată, available at: https://www.mediafax.ro/social/acasa-doar-in-buletin-1-700-de-moldoveni-intr-o-garsoniera-nimeni-nu-i-a-vazut-vreodata-18611542 (November 11, 2021).
Niedomysl, T. & Clark, W.A.V. (2014) What matters for internal migration, jobs or amenities?, Migration Letters, 11(3), pp. 377-386.
Pavelea, A.M., Pavel, A., Neamțu, B. & Kourtit, K. (2021b) Is the Creative Class a Shock-Absorber against an Economic Recession? The Resilience of Spatial Labour Markets in Romania, working paper.
Pavelea, A. M., Neamțu, B., Nijkamp, P. & Kourtit, K. (2021a) Is the Creative Class a Game Changer in Cities? A Socioeconomic Study on Romania, Sustainability, 13(11), https://doi.org/10.3390/su13115807.
Rodriguez-Pose, A., & Ketterer, T.D. (2012) Do Local Amenities Affect The Appeal Of Regions In Europe For Migrants?, Journal of Regional Science, (52)4, pp. 535-561.
Romão, J.,Kourtit, K., Neuts, B., & Nijkamp, P. (2018) The smart city as a common place for tourists and residents: A structural analysis of the determinants of urban attractiveness, Cities, (78), pp. 67-75.
Schäfer, P., & Just, T. (2018) Does urban tourism attractiveness affect young adult migration in Germany?, Journal of Property Investment & Finance, 36(1), pp. 68-90.
Servillo, L., Atkinson, R., & Russo, A. P. (2011) Territorial attractiveness in EU urban and spatial policy: a critical review and future research agenda, European Urban and Regional Studies, 19(4), pp. 349-365.
Stillwell, J., Bell, M., & Shuttleworth, I. (2017) Studying Internal Migration in a Cross-National Context, In: Champion, T., Cooke, T., & Shuttleworth, I. (eds.) Internal Migration in the Developed World (Ney York: Routledge), pp. 56-75.
Tervo, H. (2016) Do People Follow Jobs or Do Jobs Follow People? The Case of Finland in an International Context, The Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, 46(1), pp. 95-109.
Bosswick, W. (2005) Official data on migration, In: Bosswick, W. & Husband, C. (eds.) Comparative European Research in Migration, Diversity and Identity (Bilbao: University of Deusto), pp. 167-180.
Published
2022-06-21
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