Location of Co-Working Spaces in the city

Abstract

The present paper investigates the location patterns and the effects co-working spaces (CWS) generate on the urban context. The focus is on Barcelona, one of the most important creative hubs in Europe in terms of knowledge-based, creative, digital, and sharing economy, and the city hosting the largest number of co-working spaces in Spain. The paper addresses three main questions: 1) Which are the location patterns of co-working spaces in Barcelona? 2) Do CWS agglomerate in the same areas? And, 3) Do CWS coagglomerate with specific firm activities? To do that, this paper uses open data on Barcelona neighbourhoods’ socioeconomic composition provided by the Statistics Department of the Council of Barcelona and micro-geographic data of private CWS and creative labs in Barcelona. By using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Kd functions of agglomeration and coagglomeration, results show that CWS are highly concentrated in central areas of Barcelona where there are greater chances to meet customers and suppliers, the proximity to urban amenities and the fact of being associated to an specific place-image. Moreover, they coagglomerate with specific kinds of firms and to those most related to creative industries. These results are relevant when assessing what it should be the actual goal of urban policies in Barcelona. Keywords: co-working spaces, distance-based methods, agglomeration, coagglomeration, Barcelona. JEL: R00, R39, Z00