Territorial Specialization of Cultural and Creative Industries in Four Mexican Urban Nodes

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-779-8_6How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Creative industries; cultural economy; location quotient; and territorial specialization

Abstract

Cultural and creative industries (CCI) play a strategic role in urban economic transformation; however, evidence regarding their territorial specialization in developing countries remains limited and methodologically fragmented. This study analyzes the territorial specialization of CCI across four Mexican urban nodes—the Guadalajara Metropolitan Area (GMA), Puerto Vallarta, Oaxaca, and Tijuana—selected through a maximum variation sampling strategy to capture contrasting economic and cultural profiles. Using establishment, employment, and value-added data from DENUE 2026, the 2024 Economic Census, and INEGI geostatistical boundaries, location quotients (LQ) were calculated for 120 SCIAN activity classes derived from Mexico’s Culture Satellite Account (CSCM). Inter-node differences were subsequently evaluated using Chi-square analysis. The results reveal significant specialization differences across the analyzed nodes (χ² = 204.20, p < 0.001). The GMA exhibits specialization in audiovisual and software activities (LQ value added = 2.20) and selected artisanal subsectors such as leather and footwear (LQ value added > 2.20); Oaxaca shows strong specialization in heritage and museums, performing arts, and photography, where a limited number of establishments concentrate a substantial share of value added (LQ value added > 40); Puerto Vallarta is characterized by specialization in performing arts and cultural organizations; and Tijuana demonstrates strengths in audiovisual activities and cultural manufacturing. The findings provide systematic comparative evidence of territorial differentiation within Mexico’s creative economy and contribute to the international literature by demonstrating that cultural and creative industries evolve through distinct territorial specialization pathways associated with metropolitan, heritage-based, tourism-oriented, and transborder development models.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this chapter or parts of it.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Camilo Patiño García
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/06
TI  - Territorial Specialization of Cultural and Creative Industries in Four Mexican Urban Nodes
BT  - Proceedings of the International Congress on Competitiveness and Development of MSMEs 2026 (ICCD-MSMEs 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 69
EP  - 96
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-779-8_6
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-779-8_6
ID  - García2026
ER  -