Hall - Creative Cities and Economic Development
Hall, P. (2000) Creative Cities and Economic Development. Urban Studies, 37(4): 639–649.
Culture is now seen as the magic substitute for all the lost factories and warehouses, and as a device that will create a new urban image, making the city more attractive to mobile capital and mobile professional workers. Glasgow, and these other places, seem to have done well enough by pursuing that particular line, but exactly how? Can it be said that they are genuinely creative cities – creative, that is, in the same way as in the mid 18th century, when Watt took that fateful Sabbath walk across Glasgow Green? That then is the agenda: a rather tall order, but one that deserves to be addressed. First, we must ask what exactly we mean by the term ‘cultural industries’, and how important they are to our economy. Then, we need to ask what they have to do with the process of creativity.
Peter Hall “Creative Cities and Economic Development“