Attractive cities grow faster

In this Knowledge@Wharton article titled “For more urban growth, don’t forget the ballpark and river walk”, I read that beautiful cities offering more leisure activities such as an attractive waterfront grow faster than cities with fewer leisure activities. Researchers found out that the so-called "beautiful cities" tended to attract more highly-educated people. I also noticed that there is a correlation between the amounts of money local governments invest in recreation projects and their relative attractiveness for leisure visitors.

Regarding attractive waterfronts, I wrote a couple of postings here and here on how to make waterfronts in cities more attractive – using examples from the 2 beautiful Swiss cities Zürich and Geneva.