An Empirical Analysis on the Possible Role of High-Speed Railway in Cultural Urban Development

Despite accessibility by rail is considered as one of the enabling factors of the creative economy, the impacts of High-speed rail (HSR) on cultural urban development are not much addressed by scientific literature. As a contribution to this research line, we want to examine whether and to what extent the availability of HSR affects the cultural offerings of cities and people’s ability to participate in cultural life. The Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM) proposed by the EU is the starting point for our evaluations. We deepen the spatial accessibility impacts of HSR by developing an ad-hoc index that considers an isochrone calculation of travel time, frequency, and ratio of population served. In this way, we go beyond a qualitative assessment, extrapolating in quantitative terms the role of HSR over general rail accessibility. The indicator is tested on the 18 Italian cities included in the CCCM ranking, with a focus on Milan and Lombardy. Our results confirm some limits of the CCCM in capturing the impact of HSR and rail on urban accessibility and highlight the better potentialities of our method, when included in a more comprehensive evaluation framework.