Co-working Spaces in Milan: Location Patterns and Urban Effects

The present paper investigates the location patterns and the effects coworking spaces generate on the urban context, issues that have been neglected by the existing literature. The focus is on Milan, the core of the Italian knowledge-based, creative, digital, and sharing economy, and the city hosting the largest number of coworking spaces in Italy. The paper addresses three main questions: (1) Where are the main locations of coworking spaces in Milan? (2) Are there any transformative effects of coworking spaces, respectively at the urban scale and at the very local scale? (3) What are their impacts in terms of spatial transformation and in terms of innovation in practices (for instance, work, leisure, or culture)? Desk research showed that location patterns of coworking spaces resemble those of service industries in urban areas, with a propinquity to the so-called “creative clusters.” Field research shed light on urban effects, such as the participation of workers in coworking spaces in local community initiatives, their contribution to urban revitalization trends, and micro-scale physical transformations. The paper, therefore, helps to fill the gap in the literature about the location patterns of these new working spaces and their urban effects at different scales, both in terms of urban spaces and practices.