Creative Cities, Creative Spaces and Urban Policy

Abstract

The paper presents the results of an international study of creative industry policies and strategies, based on a survey of public-sector creative city initiatives and plans and their underlying rationales. As well as this survey and an accompanying literature review, interviews were carried out with senior policy-makers and intermediaries from Europe, North America, Africa and south-east Asia. The paper considers the scope and scale of so-called new-industrial clusters in local cultural and creative quarters and sub-regional creative hubs, which are the subject of policy interventions and public—private investment. The semantic and symbolic expansion of the cultural industries and their concentration in once-declining urban and former industrial districts, to the creative industries, and now to the knowledge and experience economy, is revealed in economic, sectoral and spatial terms. Whilst policy convergence and emulation are evident, manifested by the promotion of creative spaces and industry clusters and versions of the digital media and science city, this is driven by a meta-analysis of growth in the new economy, but one that is being achieved by old industrial economic interventions and policy rationales. These are being used to justify the redevelopment of former and residual industrial zones, with cities utilising the creative quarter/knowledge hub as a panacea to implement broader city expansion and regeneration plans.