Karima Kourtit, Edward Glaeser, Peter Nijkamp (p)

Alan Dixon Brown

see extended abstract' The rise of the current 'urban century' and its related global mobility and communication implications have prompted a vast array of research and policy challenges, such as mass world-wide mobility, tourism crowding effects, loss of local identity, disaster vulnerability of urban areas, and decay of urban cultural history. It is clear that the highly praised UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are at stake here, in particular in regard to ecological quality and cultural landscapes of cities. The awareness is growing that culture is an important key to sustainable development in the 'urban age', but may also have shadow sides. The concept of culture-led social and economic development is gaining increasing popularity in this context.
Culture and creativity are often seen as important drivers for an inclusive and equilibrated development trajectory of cities, not only in relation to historic towns and districts, but also to cultural amenities in large cities as well as intangible cultural assets and manifestations, such as the 'urban ambiance' . In particular, historical-cultural capital in the city and in historic quarters contributes to urban livability and local sustainable development. Culture-led urban growth has become a major signpost in many modern cities, with the consequence that culture protection is no longer a luxury, but an economic and social opportunity ( or a 'capability' in the sense of Amartya Sen) serving the needs of citizens and visitors. It is nowadays widely accepted that culture in the city stimulates creative and innovative development, enhances quality of life, reinforces feelings of local identity, and encourages local community sense.
The present paper makes an analytical attempt to map out the importance of cultural amenities for the level of appreciation by inhabitants and visitors to large urban agglomerations in the world. A first step is to zoom in on the cultural significance of 40 world cities and to investigate the relative power position of these cities in the cultural urban empires realm. This will be based on a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) model that forms the foundation for a Kuznets type of interpretation of our findings. Next, the paper will examine whether the variation in cultural attractiveness of these global cities is correlated with its size, its level of welfare or to other moderator variables. TThe results show interesting outcomes, in particular since they exhibit a great variability among types of cities and their cultural attractiveness.

Jonna Rickardsson (p), Charlotta Mellander

Lise Bourdeau-Lepage

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Alan Brown (p), Jumong Na

Jonna Rickardsson

A growing body of literature presents social capital as being a possible policy option to deliver beneficial outcomes in society, including higher levels of subjective well-being. The relationship between social capital and subjective well-being has been frequently investigated in previous research. However, a gap exists in literature focusing on seniors in aging or aged societies. An important challenge for these societies is how to ensure the aged enjoy successful later lives, with subjective well-being a necessary condition for this. Our study aims to investigate the characteristics of the relationship between social capital and subjective well-being in two countries at different stages of the aging process, South Korea and Japan. We chose these countries for two reasons. Firstly, Japan precedes South Korea in the aging of its population, thus providing the opportunity to derive future policy implications. In addition, social and demographic similarities between the two countries allow for meaningful comparison. We analyze data of individuals aged sixty and above from the South Korean and Japanese portions of the 6th wave of the World Values Survey (2010-2014). As a measure of subjective well-being, life satisfaction is used. We use t-test and Chi-square analysis to establish significant differences in variables between the two countries, followed by ordinary least squares regression analysis to establish the relationship between social capital and subjective well-being for older adults in each country, as well as for each of the different dimensions of social capital. Our results are as follows: For the South Korean regression, all social capital variables had a significant positive relationship with subjective well-being, with larger β values additionally indicating a stronger relationship than that for Japan. Trust (β=.222, p<.001), norms of reciprocity (β=.266, p<.001), and network had moderate associations with subjective well-being. For the Japanese regression, only one social capital variable, network, was significantly associated with subjective well-being (β=.078, p<.05). The implications of our research are as follows: Firstly, as with adults in general, social capital is a valuable resource to utilize for the improvement of subjective well-being levels for older adults. Second, South Korea is likely to enjoy higher subjective well-being returns for social capital investment than Japan. Third, for Japan, efforts to promote participation are advised, whereas for South Korea, policies focusing on all three components of social capital are advised.