شهرستانهای خلاق: تنش ها در داخل و بین توسعه اجتماعی، فرهنگی و اقتصادی: نگاهی انتقادی به تجربه UK

This article offers a situated and pragmatic analysis of the state of the art of creative cities policy thinking regarding the governance of the relationship between the cultural and creative economy and urbanization. It argues for the need to pay attention to the context, history and regulatory forms of creative cities and be very cautious in our desire to draw wider lessons based upon policy transfer. The paper examines the UK case as illustrative of the organic and fractured nature of policy initiatives: and, advises against a single policy model. There are many instrumental uses to which creative city polices can be put; and critically, there are a number of intrinsic uses as well. This paper, and the literature more generally, supports the view that the balance of attention has been toward instrumental uses of culture and creativity. It is argued that we need to re-balance policy and academic concern to the intrinsic value of the cultural and creative field.

The aims of this paper are both negative and positive. The positive ones are to plot a course, and to open up the field of study, of creativity, culture and the social and economic life of the city. However, in proposing a positive aim one must acknowledge the state of the art, and the dominant discourse, of the current debate. The paper has two negative premises. First, it rejects the simplistic association of the creative economy with a teleological representation of economic development, just one step beyond, or an elaboration of, the knowledge economy. Second, the paper is set against the premise that creative and cultural activities are simply forms of attraction for a mobile elite, or as an instrumental means of differentiating one place from another.

In this article we have offered a situated and pragmatic analysis of the state of the art of creative cities policy thinking: founded within the relationship between the cultural and creative economy and urbanization. We have argued that it is necessary to pay attention to the context, history and regulatory forms of creative cities and to be very cautious in the desire either to draw wider lessons, or to prescribe alternatives. We have provided evidence as to why, in particular, the UK case has for various reasons been taken as either best practice, or the first example, or the most successful example of its kind.16 However, on reflection, it serves none of these purposes.