Lee Harin, Jacoby Nori, Hennequin Romain, Moussallam Manuel
Deezer Research, Paris, France.
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2025 Jun 4;16(1):5192. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-60538-2.
Large cities exhibit greater cultural diversity. Due to limited data on individual behaviour, previous research could not discern whether this stems from demographic heterogeneity or enhanced individual cultural exploration. Analysing 250 million listening events from 2.5 million users across France, Brazil, and Germany, we investigate mechanisms driving urban cultural diversity. We assess the collective shared musical repertoire in each geographical area, while concurrently measuring individuals' music engagement breadth through listening histories. Cross-culturally, both collective diversity and individual breadth increase with population size, aligning with cultural evolution and urban scaling theories. While demographic factors such as age, gender, income, immigration, education, and social connections influence these trends, especially in highly populated areas, they do not fully explain the observed patterns. This suggests large cities are culturally diverse not only because they aggregate people from varied backgrounds but also due to greater opportunities created for cultural interactions and discovery.
大城市展现出更丰富的文化多样性。由于关于个体行为的数据有限，以往的研究无法辨别这是源于人口结构的异质性还是个体文化探索的增强。通过分析来自法国、巴西和德国250万用户的2.5亿次收听事件，我们研究了推动城市文化多样性的机制。我们评估每个地理区域的集体共享音乐曲目，同时通过收听历史记录衡量个体的音乐参与广度。跨文化来看，集体多样性和个体广度都随着人口规模的增加而增加，这与文化进化和城市规模理论相一致。虽然年龄、性别、收入、移民、教育和社会关系等人口因素会影响这些趋势，尤其是在人口密集地区，但它们并不能完全解释所观察到的模式。这表明大城市文化多样不仅是因为它们聚集了来自不同背景的人，还因为创造了更多文化互动和发现的机会。
