Description
The paper presents the findings from an international survey of public policies and strategic plans to promote and support the development of the creative industries at city-regional level. The rationales and mechanisms employed, the shifting definitions of the cultural and creative economy and sectors adopted,are discussed in the context of the grand narrative of the 'creative city'.
Creative Industries Journal Volume 1 Number 2 © 2008 Intellect Ltd
Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/cij.1.2.91/1
Strategies for creative industries:
an international review
Jo Foord Cities Institute, London Metropolitan University
Abstract
The paper presents the findings from an international survey of public policies
and strategic plans to promote and support the development of the creative
industries at city-regional level. The rationales and mechanisms employed, the
shifting definitions of the cultural and creative economy and sectors adopted,
are discussed in the context of the grand narrative of the ‘creative city’. Case
studies of Barcelona, Berlin and London are presented, confirming spatial con-
centration across the creative industries, but also the continuing dependency on
public intervention in what is projected as a growing economic sector worldwide.
Policy emulation, but also confusion over classification and social objectives, is
evident. At the same time, creative industry employment growth has begun to
falter in key creative cities leading to the suggestion that the creative industries
are now subsumed into a more substantial and wider knowledge economy.
Introduction
The notion that creativity is a limitless resource is central to the current
popularity of creativity-led economic development and enterprise strate-
gies. The proliferation of designated creative places in recent years is testi-
mony to policy practitioners’ (and politicians’) belief that almost regardless
of local conditions they too can mobilize creativity to transform their
economies and communities (cf: current creative city strategies include
Creative Baltimore, Creative Toronto, Creative Sheffield, Creative New York and
Create Berlin). Many cite Creative London, a London Development Agency-
led initiative, as an influential model (LDA 2003).
This paper presents findings from an international comparative study of
policies aimed at developing creative enterprise and spaces.
1
It draws on a
survey of creative strategies to critically assess policy rationales and antici-
pated outcomes. In so doing the paper identifies the heightened interna-
tional focus on the creative economy as a growth sector, examines the
highly politicized shifting definitions between cultural and creative indus-
tries and the tendency to unthinkingly associate cultural and creative enter-
prise within a generic new knowledge economy. It also notes an increased
preoccupation with the Intellectual Property (IP) of content-based produc-
tion and services. Using city case studies the paper also traces the increas-
ing popularity of place-based creative cluster policies. These seek to make
‘creative spaces’ – areas within the city that are attractive to and help retain
creative enterprise. Finally it concludes with a brief assessment of the
future role of creative strategies in local economic development.
91 CIJ 1 (2) pp. 91–113 © Intellect Ltd 2008
1. This research was
commissioned by the
London Development
Agency (LDA), the
city of Toronto and
the Province of
Ontario Governments
(Ministries of
Economic
Development and
Culture). The project
was undertaken jointly
by Cities Institute,
London Metropolitan
University led by
Graeme Evans and
Meric Gertler, and
University of Toronto
between 2004 and
2006. Reports arising
are available at
www.creativelondon.
org and www.
citiesinstitute.org/
creativespaces.
‘Evidence’ was taken
to mean substantial
and substantiated
policy/strategy docu-
ments, research
Keywords
creative industries
creative cities
creative spaces
strategies
policy interventions
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 91
Policy rationales
The survey of creative strategies produced a searchable database of individ-
ual creative initiatives and included any cited research and evaluation stud-
ies. One of the key selection criteria for inclusion in the database was a
focus on developing creative enterprise. Yet further analysis of the main
policy rationales showed that alongside economic development there were
several other policy rationales (Figure 1). Many of these had different and
arguably contradictory strategic goals: social inclusion; development of
social capital; community cultural programming; creation of tourist venues
and visitor economies. Some strategies were specifically directed at enabling
application for specific funding opportunities (in Europe, the European
Regional Development Fund [ERDF] for infrastructure investment; the
European Social Fund [ESF] for training and social support; in developing
areas, the World Bank for strategic investment). Here the prioritization of
creative industries was often little more than flagging a high profile economic
sector to facilitate the bidding process. This form of instrumentalism raises
questions about the types of infrastructure and programmes funded and
their relevance to the creative industries.
Underlying the cited policy rationales were two dominant assumptions
about the creative sector, both of which continue to drive the adoption of
creative enterprise strategies around the world: growth and innovation.
The first assumption was expressed through claims that creative firms
and employment are growing faster than those in any other sector.
Measured in terms of employment change and gross domestic product
(GDP)/gross value added (GVA) growth rates, creative industries were pre-
sented as important both in absolute terms and as a rising proportion of
national and regional economies. Creative employment was identified as
most significant at city level, indicating not only the high concentration of
creative enterprise in cities but also the competitive importance of particu-
lar creative cities (cities with higher than national levels of creative employ-
ment). For example, the stated level of creative industry employment in
Austria was 4 per cent but 14 per cent in Vienna; 3 per cent in Germany but
92
Jo Foord
reviews of practice
and evaluation
documentation. An
extensive policy
analysis and literature
review led to the
development
of a web-based
searchable database
(approximately 300
separate entries),
which also serves as a
research and policy
resource. This was
supplemented by
interviews and
communication
with practitioners,
policy-makers
(cultural/creative, eco-
nomic development,
city promotion), field
visits to UK and other
European cities, and
finally in-depth case
studies of six cities
in Europe and North
America, three of
which are drawn on in
this paper (Barcelona,
Berlin and London).
Figure 1: Primary policy rationale for creative industry policy (n = 300).
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 92
8 per cent in Berlin; 4 per cent in Finland but 8.5 per cent in Helsinki;
3.9 per cent in the Netherlands but 6.9 per cent in Amsterdam; 5 per cent in
the United Kingdom but 8 per cent in London; 2.2 per cent in the United
States of America but 8.1 per cent in New York and so on. Creative employ-
ment growth rates, cited over individually selected time periods, also varied
widely: 5.7 per cent (1996–2003) for Amsterdam; 6 per cent (1999–2003)
for Vienna; 7 per cent (1998–2002) for Berlin; 13 per cent (1998–2002) for
New York; 5 per cent p.a. (1995–2000) for London; 13.4 per cent (1986–2000)
for Singapore; 17 per cent (1999–2003) for Shanghai; and 22 per cent
(1999–2001) for Glasgow. Although comparison of national and city data is
limited by the different time scales, this was unacknowledged in advocacy
documents where relative rates were highlighted to make the case for
strategic intervention.
This lack of transparency was exacerbated by the inclusion of different
activities within the creative industries. For example, Glasgow’s cited high
growth rate had much to do with the inclusion of a wide range of informa-
tion and communication technologies (ICT)-related activities. Similarly, in
some strategies, growth rates were quoted without any accompanying data,
thus obscuring the relatively low levels of creative employment or GVA.
Nevertheless, growth rates cited from previously published strategies were
frequently repeated in support of new initiatives.
The second assumption was a perceived potential for high levels of
innovation in the creative industries (more accurately the creation of
new Intellectual Property – IP). Reference to the knowledge economy
was included in most creative strategies with acknowledgement of the
increasing role of intangibles (ideas, tacit knowledge, networks – all
difficult-to-define entities with few or no material qualities) and short-
term project-based/high risk-orientated working. The creative industries
were then assumed to offer a limitless supply of new ideas for potential
products – feeding into and from increasingly diverse material cultures
and media.
In the majority of cases, justification for claiming high rates of innova-
tion in the creative sector was based neither on quantitative measures nor
case study evidence. More commonly, policy and strategy documents pro-
filed individual examples of enterprise or product success (often associated
with computer games or design) and examples of locations that had high
profiles in cutting-edge industries (mostly Silicon Valley or its clones).
The politics (and economics) of definitions
One of the major problems in identifying and evaluating (as well as devel-
oping and implementing) creative enterprise strategies in cities, is the fluid
nature of the terms ‘cultural industries’ and ‘creative industries’. In the sur-
veyed strategies these were often used either together as ‘cultural and cre-
ative industries’ or interchangeably. This overlap was most notable in city or
regional initiatives where the term creative industries was used to identify
the sector focus of an initiative but the data and case studies were drawn
from the cultural industries (usually dominated by the arts and grant-
aided/not-for-profit organizations).
This confusion was magnified where there were shifting policy and
governance regimes – often imposed from national, rather than city or
93
Strategies for creative industries
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 93
regional, guidance. These shifts usually required local cultural practition-
ers to work within a creative enterprise agenda. Many creative strategies
illustrated the struggle cultural practitioners had in putting their concerns
within this framework. Likewise, few of those working in the commercial
creative industries – publishing, architecture, advertising, film/TV etc –
identified with a collective creative industries sector, preferring instead to
remain associated with their own professional and industry fields (and
markets).
The label ‘creative industries’ was first used in Australia to signpost the
significant interface between commercial cultural activity and the emerging
new media driven by technological change. This label brought to the fore-
front the enterprise dynamics of these activities (risk-taking, self-starting,
ideas-driven, lifestyle-based) and their resonance with the new knowledge
economy (Cunningham 2002). In the United Kingdom, the term creative
industries was extended in the 1990s to highlight the economic contribu-
tion of commercial cultural production, leisure activities and entertainment
as well as the economic potential of many subsidized cultural activities
(GLC 1985; DCMS 1998). The most referenced UK Department for Culture,
Media and Sport (DCMS) definition included a wide range of activities
combining originality and IP with profitability (DCMS 1998, 2001, 2004).
2
The list of thirteen activities emphasized the breadth of the creative indus-
tries and has become a benchmark for identifying creative industries inter-
nationally as well as at regional, sub-regional and city levels within the
United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.
3
Similar advocacy strategies for identifying the scope of the creative
industries have been adopted in Australia and New Zealand using
approaches derived from the UK DCMS.
4
However, there is a debate, par-
ticularly in Australia, over the transferability of this approach (Stevenson
2004; Gibson and Klocker 2004). An alternative model has been developed
in an attempt to capture locally significant IP through patents and trade-
marks (industrial or commercial production) and copyrights and design-
rights (cultural activity). This focus on different forms of IP has been
accelerated by the growing importance of digital technology and the fusion
of creative content with new delivery platforms. In New Zealand, criticism
of the UK DCMS methodology has emphasized the absence of robust sta-
tistics. This has led to a more cautious approach and a simplified mapping
using ten instead of thirteen creative industry descriptors.
5
Both Hong Kong and Singapore have adapted the DCMS definitions,
tailoring these to capture the local importance of IT and digital media
(Hong Kong) and arts and culture with design and media (Singapore).
China more generally, and Beijing in particular, has adopted the Australian
definition of creative industries with six industrial groupings forming the
basis of their mapping exercises. Core elements of the creative industries –
entertainment software, film and television, music publishing, book pub-
lishing, audio-visual and multimedia – have been grouped together as the
‘copyright industries’ in the United States of America (Siwek 2004).
However, Americans for the Arts promotes analysis of creative industries as
‘arts centric businesses’, defining creative industries as ‘both for-profit and
non-profit businesses involved in the creation or distribution of the arts’
(2005:1).
6
This definition purposely blurs the distinction between commercial
94
Jo Foord
2. DCMS (1998, 2001,
2004) creative indus-
tries classification:
advertising,
architecture, art
and antiques, crafts,
design, designer
fashion, film and
video, interactive
leisure software,
television and radio,
performing arts,
music and software
and related computer
services. www.culture.
gov.uk/global/research/
det/glossary_
abbreviations.htm
3. Examples are South
East Cultural
Consortium/SEEDA
Creative and Cultural
Industries: An
Economic Impact
Study for SE England
(2002); GEMACA 11,
INTERREG IIC
Programme (2001/2).
4. In Australia,
Queensland has
defined creative indus-
tries as six interrelated
sets of industries:
music composition
and production;
film, television and
entertainment
software (including
animation and
computer games);
performing arts;
writing, publishing
and print media;
advertising, graphic
design and marketing;
architecture, visual
arts and design – www.
premiers.qld.gov.au.
5. The NZ Institute of
Economic Research’s
Creative Industries
in New Zealand –
Economic Contribution.
Report to Industry
New Zealand (2002)
lists advertising,
software and
computer services
(including leisure
software), publishing,
television and radio,
architecture, design,
designer fashion,
music and performing
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 94
enterprises and non-commercial arts and cultural activities – although
the privatized fundraising regimes of not-for-profit art and culture makes
them closer to the enterprise economy than European state-funded cultural
institutions (Caves 2000). Consequently, the ranking of creative cities in
North America incorporated employment, enterprise, innovation, technol-
ogy and growth from copyright and so-called arts-centric businesses
(Florida 2002).
The creative strategies survey also found that mechanisms for legal reg-
istration of IP were increasingly important. The World Bank’s approach was
to identify products and outputs that were ‘protectable under some form of
intellectual property law’ (Weiping 2005). The most significant creative
industries for the World Bank were therefore: software, multimedia, video
games, industrial design, fashion, publishing, and research and develop-
ment (R&D) – all defined by the legal processes of owning creative content.
Concern with defining and controlling IP was particularly evident in strate-
gies emerging from the United States, Australia and Singapore, and increas-
ingly China. Here, state-regulated legal and institutional frameworks were
identified as necessary to creative industries’ development. For cities,
regions or countries with less well organized institutional and legal struc-
tures this has been noted as a growing barrier to market entry (Healy 2002).
Cultural or creative industries?
In contrast, the UN international trade and development agency, the United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), made a dis-
tinction between the creative industries that derived value from copyright-
ing and distributing creative content, and the cultural industries that
generated creative content in a local context through literary, visual and per-
forming arts (UNCTAD 2004). This distinction was critical for those devis-
ing creative strategies in developing areas where the creative resource was
identified as located in local (indigenous) culture, rather than in the pro-
duction processes of global creative industries.
There was a similar rejection of a copyright-based definition of creative
industries and advocacy of cultural industries by some policy practitioners
in the Asian Pacific region (UNESCO 2004). Cultural industries were seen
to ‘...use creativity, cultural knowledge and intellectual property to produce
products and services with social and cultural meaning’ (UNESCO 2004).
This definition emerged in response to fears of exploitation of local cultures
(through Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) mechanisms) by global creative
industries based in advanced economies. This concern was not limited to
emerging economies. In strategies emerging from Canada, at federal and
provincial level, creative enterprises also remained within the scope of the
cultural industries.
7
Use of the term ‘cultural’ rather than ‘creative’ industries was therefore a
key discriminator for those wishing to prioritize the social meaning of cul-
tural production, distribution and participation, including ideas of collective
ownership of culture and the significance of not-for-profit production. This
concern has been reflected in the academic debate with forceful argument
being put forward for the use of the term ‘cultural industries’. Andy Pratt (2004)
argues that the value of this perspective is that it seeks to present cultural
outputs as the result of collective innovation by a number of participants
95
Strategies for creative industries
arts, visual arts (arts,
crafts and antiques).
6. Americans for the
Arts’ (2004, 2005)
Congressional Report
on the Creative
Industries has taken a
conservative approach
to defining the
creative industries by
including only those
businesses involved
with the production
or distribution of the
arts. They include
museums and collec-
tions, performing
arts, visual arts and
photography, film,
radio and TV, design
and publishing, and
arts schools and
services.
7. Canadian Framework
for Cultural Statistics
(2004) includes writ-
ten media, the film
industry, broadcasting,
sound recording and
music publishing,
performing arts,
visual arts, crafts,
architecture, photog-
raphy, design,
advertising,
museums, art
galleries, archives,
libraries and cultural
education.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 95
whose participation is various, but linked together by the organization of
production. The European Parliament has retained this emphasis on the cul-
tural industries. Until recently, culture was at the heart of the European pro-
ject with funding through structural funds (ERDF) often going to support
major cultural projects and industries. These were frequently linked to
culture-led regeneration or city (re)branding in the Mediterranean and north-
ern post-industrial cities and associated with the development of visitor
economies. In 2005, the European Commission proposed that the ‘creative
industries’ should be viewed as a sub-set of the ‘cultural industries’, retain-
ing the cultural agenda for Europe (European Commission 2005).
Within Europe, individual regions and cities have selectively identified
specific cultural or creative industries for promotion and development (for
example, art and design in Barcelona; media in Munich; film in Paris; adver-
tising in Lisbon; fashion and design in Milan; music technology in
Stockholm) or devised their own definitions linked to locally significant
industrial sectors such as ICT (Oslo and Stockholm) or arts production
(Helsinki). Some quota systems operate at national (France) and regional
levels (Catalonia), particularly to protect indigenous language production in
broadcast media and film. The United Kingdom is the only European mem-
ber state to define and prioritize the creative industries in national policy.
Classification matters
Identifying the scope of the creative or cultural industries to be included in a
creative strategy was hindered further by the inadequacy of national and
international industrial classification systems.
8
Categories of industrial eco-
nomic activity are based on the output of an industry or industrial group (its
product or service) and its process of production (manufacture or service).
Classification systems have been built up over time and are subject to
national and international agreement. They reflect a detailed understanding
of the subdivisions in manufacturing activity but a less robust knowledge of
the fast-moving service-related industries (though this is less so in North
America).
9
Employment in each industry includes all those working in that
sector, regardless of their job or role. Most creative strategies took a prag-
matic approach and selectively identified creative industries, often cutting
across existing industrial groupings. However, the inclusion of a large num-
ber of non-creative employees was unavoidable. This did lead to an exagger-
ation of the creative nature of some ‘creative’ industries, for example
through the inclusion of tasks relating to the routine aspects of digital media
and audio-visual production as well as many distribution-related activities.
National administrative data on employment and enterprises tends to
undercount small and medium size enterprises as well as micro businesses
and sole traders. Yet the surveyed creative strategies and initiatives almost
universally recognized that these groups were the mainstay of the creative
sector and central to its growth and innovation potential. In order to cap-
ture sole traders and micro business in their evidence base, many creative
initiatives at city or local level commissioned local snap-shot surveys to
supplement or even replace national data. These local surveys were variable
in quality and tended to adopt their own categorization of creative indus-
tries. Some were supplemented by trade association data, thus potentially
double counting enterprises and exaggerating the size of the sector.
96
Jo Foord
8. Standard Industrial
Classification (SIC
2003); International
Standard Industrial
Classification of All
Economic Activities
(ISIC 2002);
Classification of
Economic Activities
in the European
Community (NACE
2002); North
American Industrial
Classification System
(NAICS); Australia
and New Zealand
Standard Industrial
Classification.
9. See for example the
North American
Product Classification
(NAPC).
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 96
A significant number of strategies also drew on research documents and
academic publications that have suggested an alternative occupational
approach to defining creative activity. This work focuses on the perceived
importance of creative occupations in a knowledge-driven economy and has
identified specific jobs and tasks that are central to the creation of new
ideas, new technologies and new content. It has been noted that many of
these creative occupations require high educational achievement and subse-
quently attract high wages (DTI 2004; Florida 2002; Markusen and Schrock
2001). The scope of creative occupations is also seen as wider than that of
the creative industries. Workers in these occupations can be employed out-
side narrowly defined creative industries just as many employees in the cre-
ative industries are not required to produce creative content or work
creatively. This occupational approach was fuelled by Richard Florida’s iden-
tification of talent as a key component of his creativity index. His work mea-
sured the proportion of the creative class (sic) in the labour force (for city,
region or nation).
10
It has also had a major impact on creative enterprise pol-
icy. Strategies aimed at attracting and/or retaining particular (talented and
creative) people were more prevalent. These ranged from industry-related
training and education initiatives (for example, Helsinki Arts and Design
College, Arabianranta; University Pobra Fabra, Barcelona; ‘Retaining Creative
Talent’, Scotland) to proposals and plans for wholesale neighbourhood change
led by cultural projects (such as the transformations of La Raval and
Poblenou in Barcelona and the development of the cultural/consumption-led
urban quarters of the Museumquarter in Vienna).
Where strategies identified creative workers and creative occupations as
a target for intervention, problems similar to those identified for industrial
classifications and employment arose (see above). Occupational classifica-
tions do not reflect current jobs especially within the rapidly evolving cre-
ative sector.
11
Identification of creative occupations and measurement of
creative talent relies on manipulating existing occupational and labour mar-
ket categories and therefore is limited. Nevertheless, Florida’s ‘talent index’
was applied to city ranking across North America and Europe (Florida and
Tingali 2004), and was a popular reference for policy practitioners, particu-
larly in places where the creative industries agenda had already been taken
up (for example Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and China).
12
Attempts to find analytical coherence for the scope of the creative indus-
tries and creative occupations is a messy, often retrospective task. Those
policy practitioners who worked across existing classificatory boundaries
assembled data from a wide variety of sources. Creative strategies and poli-
cies have tended to refer to this evidence as if it was well founded and veri-
fied. This was not always the case.
Types of intervention
Further analysis of the survey results indicated that practical interventions
cited within the creative strategies could be grouped by one of six broad
categories:
i. Property and Premises Strategies
ii. Business Development, Advice and Network Building
iii. Direct Grants and Loans Schemes to Creative Business/Entrepreneurs
97
Strategies for creative industries
10. www.creativeclass.org
11. The DCMS (www.
culture.gov.uk/global/
research/det/soc) and
Canadian Statistics
(Cultural Framework
2004 Appendix C)
have listed their
selections of creative
occupations using
the Standard
Occupational
Classification.
12. www.creativeclass.org
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 97
iv. Fiscal Initiatives
v. Physical and IT Infrastructure
vi. Soft Infrastructure
These categories are not exclusive, but they provide a profile of the main
types of intervention and therefore the mechanisms used to promote and
support creative enterprise in particular localities. Many of the interven-
tions are familiar types of economic development support common to
generic business support initiatives – providing workspace and training,
advice, networking and loans, business management skills and creative
education, access to trade events and new technology. Some were specific
to the creative sector – including fiscal incentives such as tourist taxes and
percent for art used to raise finance for public investment in arts infrastruc-
ture or direct tax credits for creative artists.
As with generic support services, many of the business support initia-
tives for the creative sector were directed at start-up businesses, mico or
small and medium-sized enterprises and were managed by intermediary
public or voluntary sector agencies. Where the particular needs of the cre-
ative industries were highlighted, these tended to emphasize the peculiari-
ties of the creative process and the lack of business awareness amongst
practitioners. Interventions were framed within the language of enterprise
development, but in some cases appeared to be a response to growing
market failure, particularly in traditional craft-based industries lagging
behind in process and product innovation.
The soft interventions of advice, skills and enterprise training for start-
ups and entry level employment dominated. Higher level interventions in
technology infrastructure, international marketing and IP legal frameworks
were rare. Strategies were mostly directed towards the aspirations of creative
economies based on small firms in arts and crafts or new media, and within
the goals of local area-based regeneration policy. They did not address the
needs of large, private-sector creative firms trading in the commercial cre-
ative sectors (such as advertising, film, mainstream fashion) and through
global networks, even though this is where the lion’s share of market,
employment and innovation activity is found. There was evidence also of a
sustained public subsidy of intermediary agencies engaged in delivering
these interventions. Many in the European Assistance Areas were supported
by ERDF funding, suggesting entrenched public sector dependency.
Several creative strategies included statements outlining how the suc-
cess of such initiatives should be assessed. These included generalized
statements on how sustained the initiative proved to be, how far it inte-
grated with other economic initiatives, whether or not it elicited city growth,
how far it involved and benefited the creative sector and how responsive it
was to economic and political change. However, standard evaluation
methodologies and tools can rarely fully assess such desired outcomes.
The promotion of creative strategies and the proliferation of supportive
interventions (sometimes with not insubstantial funds attached) coincided
with the ascendancy of business cluster strategies
13
linked to local growth
agendas. Drawing on the influential ideas of Michael Porter, support for
‘creative clusters’ was included in strategies where policy support for the
creative industries had been established.
98
Jo Foord
13. Cluster policies
and strategies are
widespread across
developed economies
and have developed
from the work of
Porter on competitive
advantage (1990,
1995, 1996). Porter
has developed the
concept of the cluster
‘diamond’, which
identifies the interde-
pendent conditions in
which cluster develop-
ment can lead to
increased productivity.
This includes the
local context, inputs,
demand and related
and support
industries. The DTI
(UK) have a cluster
strategy – Business
Clusters in the UK
(2001) www.dti.gov.
uk/clusters; IKED
(2004) The Cluster
Policies White
Book provides an
international review
of cluster policies
and strategies and
offers a toolkit for
measurement and
evaluation; The
Institute for Strategy
and Competitiveness
at Harvard Business
School runs an
international
cluster project
www.isc.hbs.edu.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 98
Integrated strategies: creative clusters?
From the strategies reviewed, a ‘creative cluster’ was largely taken to mean
a linked grouping of creative industries, firms and/or cultural activities that
had a spatial concentration. Geographical proximity was identified as par-
ticularly important, especially in clusters dominated by creative small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro businesses. These were based on
specialized craft or new digital practices, or where work was predominantly
organized around short-term projects or labour flexibility and where labour
market information was deemed critically important. These assumptions
about how a creative cluster worked were replicated time and again with lit-
tle confirmatory evidence.
Current research and policy toolkits on creative industry clusters focus
on the creative production chain (United Kingdom) and cultural chain
(Canada) (Pratt 2004; DCMS 2004; Statistics Canada 2004). However,
these tend to miss the wider interdependencies of a ‘creative cluster’ with
cultural institutions and educational programmes – especially higher edu-
cation in the creative arts.
National and trans-national cluster policy research has identified gen-
eral creative industries clusters centred on major conurbations throughout
Europe (GEMACA II 2002) and in the United Kingdom centred on London
(DTI 2003). Some regional spatial and economic strategies have identified
localized creative sectors, for example games software and digital media in
central Scotland. At city level, creative cluster strategies were associated
with particular industries (film/TV in Los Angeles; jewellery in London;
fashion in Paris) or with assembling cultural premises (cultural industry
quarters in Sheffield, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Glasgow) or a mixture of the
two, for example ‘creative hubs’ in London – although the United Kingdom
as a whole has now been named a global ‘creative hub’ (DCMS 2006).
Some cluster-led creative strategies have sought to address the measure-
ment of cluster scope and geographical reach, although this has proved
problematic at the sub-regional level.
14
The stage in the development cycle is one way of evaluating the
strength of a cluster. In conventional cluster analysis, the stages of clus-
ter development have been identified as Embryonic, Established, Mature,
Declining, based on levels of employment and output, depth of inter-firm
linkages and the significance and reach of business and consumer mar-
kets.
15
The creative industries clusters identified in the surveyed strate-
gies were found to be Embryonic when judged against conventional
business cluster evaluation. However, it was evident that creative clus-
ters are not conventional business clusters and additional factors were
critical to their development and form (especially the role of publicly
funded arts and cultural institutions). The strategic aims of creative clus-
ters and therefore the anticipated outcomes were different from conven-
tional business clusters. Creative clusters had social as well as enterprise
objectives – goals of inclusion, cultural development, as well as enter-
prise growth.
Four types of development for creative clusters emerged from the sur-
vey of creative strategies: Dependent, Aspirational, Emergent and Mature.
These are summarized in Table 1 below, illustrating the roles of the public
sector, nature of markets and firm size as key differential factors.
99
Strategies for creative industries
14. For example the City
Fringe Partnership –
City Growth Strategy
(DTI Small Business
Service); Department
of Communications,
Information
Technology and the
Arts/National Office
for the Information
Economy, Australia
Creative Industries
Cluster Study.
15. This is used by the
UK DTI (now BERR),
however, others
use Agglomerating,
Emerging, Developing,
Mature and
Transforming to note
the life cycle of cluster
development – IKED
(2004) The Cluster
Policies White Book.
See also www.isc.
hbs. edu.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 99
The majority of the creative cluster initiatives in the surveyed creative
strategies were Dependent (for example, Sheffield Creative Industries
Quarter; St Petersburg Creative Industries Development Centre; Seoul
Digital Media City; Taipei Creative Industries Cluster) or Aspirational
(Brisbane Creative Precinct; The Digital Hub and MediaLab, Dublin;
Leipzig Media Cluster; West Kowloon Cultural Centre, Hong Kong;
Creative Gateway, King’s Cross London). Many were essentially cultural
quarters made up of assorted cultural consumption venues and not-for-
profit arts activities with limited SME creative enterprise activity (for
example, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam; The Veemarktkwartier, Tilburg).
Some were Emergent, especially where astute commercialization of inno-
vations had taken place with infrastructural support (for example the
film/TV sector in Glasgow). Few were Mature and where these did exist
there was a notable absence of active policy intervention (for example,
film/TV production in Los Angeles; fashion and furniture in Milan; fash-
ion in New York).
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Jo Foord
Stage Definitions
1. Dependent Creative enterprises developed as a direct result of public
sector intervention through business support, infrastructure
development for cultural consumption and finance to
SME/micro creative enterprises.
Public subsidy required to sustain the cluster.
Limited and underdeveloped local markets.
2. Aspirational Some independent creative enterprises and/or privatized
former public sector cultural enterprises in place but limited
in scale and scope.
Underdeveloped local markets and limited consumption
infrastructure.
High levels of public and institutional ‘boosterist’ promo-
tional activity.
3. Emergent Initiated by growing number and scale of creative enterprises
with infrastructural investment from the public sector.
Developing local and regional markets with visible cultural
consumption.
Some internationalization of market reach.
4. Mature Led by established large-scale creative enterprises in specific
industries with established sub-contracting linkages and
highly developed national and international markets.
Business-to-business consumption.
Arms-length public intervention.
Table 1: Creative cluster development.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 100
Often the adoption of a cluster approach drew little from Porter other
than the label. His emphasis on capitalizing local advantages for enterprise
development was replaced in practice by attempts to facilitate interaction
between existing and potential enterprises, possible cultural consumption
and the aspirations of the local policy regime. From the evidence reviewed
it was the strength of the relationships between these three elements that
characterized and sustained an effective creative cluster initiative especially
where it was expected to deliver social as well as economic objectives.
In the absence of one or more of these three elements, creative clusters
were unlikely to establish or grow in a sustained way. If one or more ele-
ment dominated, the creative cluster became unbalanced, and wider strate-
gic (policy or industry) objectives were neither achieved nor sustained. The
interdependence between public and private sectors was particularly
acute where creativity was embedded both in the processes and products
of the cluster. This was also a factor in cluster growth where public subsidy
and procurement underpinned both markets and cultural activity.
For example, higher education emerged strongly in both Mature and
Emergent creative clusters. University, vocational and technical training hubs,
encompassing education and training facilities, R&D, incubation/start-up
companies, consumer education in taste and trends all had key roles to play.
Here, innovation was closely related to R&D-higher education-industry hubs
and partnerships, in both creative and ‘non-creative’ production. Similarly,
public-private cooperation was critical to Emergent creative clusters (insti-
gated by either sector). Notable examples included MedienCampus Bayern
centred on Munich, the ‘Internet city in Germany’, founded by thirteen lead-
ing media firms, education and industry associations in 1988; and
22@Media, Barcelona’s new media city in the former manufacturing district
of Poblenou, a joint venture between a private-sector company, MediaPro, an
art and design university, University Pobra Fabra, and the city of Barcelona.
City case studies – creative clusters everywhere
The survey of creative strategies found that cluster development was
increasingly at the forefront of city-level interventions. A cluster approach
was often adopted where there was also a ‘knowledge city’ and/or a ‘knowl-
edge economy’ strategy driving mainstream economic development and
inward investment policy. This section of the paper draws on three (of six)
in-depth case studies undertaken for this project.
16
These case studies are
of European cities and represent contrasting political, cultural and eco-
nomic systems as well as scales of creative sector development. However,
all the cities sought to reinforce their regional and international status
through their advocacy of creative and cultural enterprise.
Barcelona
Barcelona is often used as an exemplar of how to do ‘culture-led regenera-
tion’ – it has also developed a reputation for design-based creativity, event-
led business tourism and cultural consumption. The primary role of historic
and modern architecture, city design and public realm in policy have generated
a powerful mix driving the physical reconstruction and rebranding of the
city supported by a strong city/regional political consensus. The higher edu-
cation sector is strongly represented in the city with a number of specialist
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Strategies for creative industries
16. The full case studies
are available from
www.creativelondon.
org.uk.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 101
design and architecture institutions attracting rising numbers of students.
The city’s cultural plan promotes Barcelona as one cultural project, bring-
ing together civic, creative enterprise and territorial initiatives. This is an
outward-looking strategy linking Barcelona into European and global city
(political and practitioner) networks (for example, the City Mayors Forum,
the Global Cities Network and the UNESCO Creative Cities Network).
The knowledge economy, defined by the city as cultural, communica-
tion, professional and design services, has been identified as the driver of
considerable employment growth in Barcelona, especially since 2003 and
particularly in the wider metropolitan area. Although Catalonia accounts
for 28 per cent of the cultural industries employment in Spain, only 2 per
cent of national employment is in this sector (third lowest in the core fif-
teen EU states). They represent just 1 per cent of all firms in Catalonia,
generating an estimated 1.2 per cent of GVA. However, a 20 per cent
increase in the GVA from cultural industries is claimed for 1998–2001.
Dominant sectors are audio-visual and publishing, with the largest
growth claimed for film and TV (post-liberalization) and the visual arts
(albeit from a very low base). Most growth has been based in the wider
Barcelona Metropolitan Area (BMA), indicating less concentration in the
city itself. 75 per cent of Catalonia’s ICT, professional design and arts and
entertainment employment is in the BMA – accounting for 5 per cent of
all employment. The creative sector is no bigger than other European
cities (though high for Spain). This is perhaps surprising for a city popu-
larly known for its creativity.
A recent study of creative industries in Barcelona has plotted the clus-
tering of creative enterprise within the city (Figure 2) (InterArts 2004). This
suggests that particular districts have their own creative specializations and
this has been associated with the existing neighbourhood variations in pub-
lic-private infrastructure. These are largely Aspirational creative clusters with
low levels of enterprise activity but strong links with distinctive neighbour-
hood cultures (for example in Gracia and Ciutat Vella).
This tradition of neighbourhood underpins the current strategy to
develop a new digital media locality in the former industrial district of
Poblenou. This initiative is being led by the city (in a joint public-private
initiative, see above) through the development of workspace/incubator
facilities and training, as well as in a grant-aid programme and venture
capital investment. There is a long-term public investment commitment in
the 22@ Media City through support for new higher education and inno-
vation projects. This suggests that this creative cluster will be Dependent
for some time.
There are weaknesses in Barcelona’s creative economy. It is not diversi-
fied and is over-concentrated in architecture, art and design, although
film/TV and radio and live theatre are re-emerging. High-risk infrastructure
investment strategies are being pursued, albeit with private-sector partners,
in highly competitive sectors in which the city neither has established
strengths nor, as yet, a critical mass.
The strain on the old city is also evident in terms of loss of housing, ris-
ing gentrification, endemic street crime, overcrowding and traffic conges-
tion. Economic growth is taking place in the metropolitan region, leaving
new migrant areas potentially isolated and ghettoized. The city does not
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CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 102
have a multicultural approach or strategy, and the transition from a cultur-
ally autonomous to a cosmopolitan city is a political challenge. Major
urban projects (including the UNESCO Culture Forum and Poblenou develop-
ments) have not received universal support and there has been resistance
from incumbent communities. There are also few professional creative
intermediaries with networks to support creative enterprise. The city takes
a municipal rather than an enabling role, although recent initiatives have
recognized the need for arms-length intervention and greater industry-led
activity in cluster development.
Despite an impressive long-term strategic plan, policy evaluation,
statistical data collection and measurement methodologies are neither
integrated nor established across the tiers of government, nor identified
with a measurable creative production chain. However, the publication
of general cultural indicators in the annual report of the Cultural Institute
and the Barcelona Statistical Yearbook is beginning to provide the basis
for longitudinal analysis. The development of cultural indicators as part
of the adoption of the Agenda 21 for Culture (ICB 2004) may also enable
a more robust review of the Strategic Plan objectives and progress.
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Strategies for creative industries
Figure 2: Creative enterprise clusters in Barcelona.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 103
Berlin
Berlin has experienced more recent change than perhaps any other
European city. After reunification, the city regained capital status but finan-
cial deficit and political uncertainty has created both an identity and policy-
implementation vacuum. Berlin is a city still in flux.
The publication of the city’s first Creative Industries in Berlin Report
(Berlin Senate 2005) sparked a local debate on the role of creativity in the
economy. The creative economy is estimated to employ 8 per cent of the
workforce (80,000 people excluding 20,000 to 30,000 self-employed
artists, designers and sole traders) and to produce 11 per cent of Berlin’s
GDP compared to 3.6 per cent of German GDP. Creativity has been high-
lighted as a major production factor.
A new media and related industries cluster has been identified in inner
East Berlin, with multimedia firms co-locating at building and street level
(for example on Chausee-Strasse – ‘Silicon Allee’). This co-location is
assumed to generate cross-fertilization within the creative production and
value chain, creating what Stefan Kratke coins, a ‘space of opportunities’
(Kratke 2002). Leading companies in the communication and media sector
are relocating alongside privatized public corporations and for many young
and creative media experts Berlin is the sought-after location. Recent loca-
tional analysis by Marco Mundelius (2006) has identified significant clus-
tering of both software/multimedia and film/video firms in Kreuzberg,
Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg – all central border districts that experienced dis-
investment prior to unification (Figure 3). Berlin aims to build on this clus-
tering to become Germany’s media metropolis through major strategic
infrastructural investment in the MEDIACITY, Adlershof in the south-east of
the city. This pioneering location is playing an increasingly important role in
the development of this production-driven cluster. Using the typology of
creative clusters (see above), Berlin’s media sector appears to be an
Emergent creative cluster.
The district of Prenzlauer Berg is part of the borough of Pankow and is
said to have replaced Kreuzberg (which has experienced recent decline and
social tension) as the up-and-coming residential creative district, in which
many artists live/work and galleries and bars co-exist. A multicultural milieu
has emerged, as 6.4 per cent of people who live in Pankow have a national-
ity other than German. Together, Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg are promoted
by their local administrations as the creative centre of Berlin, with 13,000
people said to be working in the creative and cultural industries. High pub-
lic investment in education and the large number of specialist freelance
workers located in these areas are seen as strengths, as is a robust public
infrastructure. But the lack of marketing expertise has resulted in the under-
exploitation of entrepreneurial potential and a very low degree of interna-
tionalization of the cluster. Only a small fraction of sales income is said to
be achieved in foreign markets. Creative production is inward looking to
local (Berlin) markets. Creative enterprises are more likely to struggle with
access to funding than those in other sectors and there are management-
skills deficits. These are the characteristics of an Aspirational creative clus-
ter. Moving from ‘creative scene’ to creative enterprise is proving a big step.
Active strategies to encourage creative clustering and entrepreneurship
have been identified as key areas for city-level public intervention.
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105
Strategies for creative industries
Figure 3: Creative clusters in Berlin.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 105
However, structural weaknesses in the city will hinder this intervention.
The city has a large budget deficit and has instituted public expenditure cuts.
There is high un/under-employment and significant levels of worklessness
despite attracting highly skilled and educated migrants from across Europe
and North America. There is a lack of faith and trust in local politicians, born
out of both the deficit crisis and accusations of property speculation (and
corruption). The city is becoming divided between social and ethnic groups,
introducing new issues of social inclusion for the administration. There is no
overall strategic policy framework for the city, so the ability of policy-led
intervention to influence economic development has been limited in the
past. Berlin’s creative economy has been organic and anarchic, so evaluation
of ‘success’ and measurement of scale are problematic. Berlin has competi-
tive advantages (location, availability of premises, high educational attain-
ment), however, the current problems suggest that it will be another decade
before its creative city role and status embeds and matures.
London
London has championed the creative industries within its economy since
the late 1980s. This has increased in intensity since the first DCMS Creative
Industries Mapping Document was published in 1998. Headline claims used
to support the Creative London Action Plan (Creative London 2006) suggest
that, since the late 1990s, annual increases in employment were 5 per cent,
with 8.5 per cent for output and 4 per cent for improved productivity in the
creative sector – out-performing all other sectors of the economy. The
Action Plan cites creative industries as responsible for 15.9 per cent of
London’s GVA, one in five new jobs in the creative industries and 450,000
‘creative’ employees (Creative London 2006: 5).
Research undertaken by GLA Economics (GLA 2007) confirms that
London and the Rest of the South East (ROSE) region dominate UK employ-
ment in the creative industries, with 58 per cent of all creative jobs representing
7.9 per cent of London jobs and 4.2 per cent of all jobs in the ROSE (Table 2).
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Workforce jobs
(000)
% of workforce that
is ‘creative’
London 360 7.9
ROSE 293 4.2
Rest of UK 485 2.5
UK 1,138 3.7
Table 2: Workforce and creative jobs, 2005 (DCMS-DET defined industries).
Source: GLA Economics, 2007.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 106
There is further concentration of the creative industries within central London
(Figure 4), a pattern reinforced for each of the production chain of the
domains advocated by the DCMS in their DCMS Evidence Tootkit (DET).
London’s Mature creative clusters overlap and are highly centralized (Figure 5).
Nevertheless, one of the key programmes under the Creative London
Action Plan (2006) – creative hubs – is based on cluster development out-
side this central London core. This new programme has been developed to
use creativity as a catalyst for entrepreneurial development in areas of
enterprise deprivation and where there is thought to be some potential for
creative activity based on the location of a higher education arts institution,
subsidized arts venue or active local community cultural programme. Ten
hubs have been designated (Figure 6), all with not-for-profit organizations
of varying sizes and with a remit to support the creative industries. In each
area, a lead organization has been appointed to communicate with local
agencies and develop a long-term plan. Since 2003, £56 million in funding
has been approved in hub-based areas, more than 50 per cent of which has
been raised from non-creative industry investment programmes, notably
from property and regeneration budgets, and sector and skill investment
programmes (Creative London 2006). This public sector-led creative clus-
ter strategy is working with mostly Aspirational or Dependent clusters and
indeed some which are pre-Dependent (Barking and Dagenham, Outer East
London). Here, the hub strategy is to develop the networks and infrastruc-
tures that might facilitate creative activity of any kind.
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Strategies for creative industries
Figure 4: Creative employment in London.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 107
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Figure 6: Creative hubs in London.
Figure 5: London’s creative industry domains.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 108
This creative hub programme is being implemented as London’s cre-
ative employment appears to be in flux. By plotting employment trends for
London, ROSE and the Rest of the United Kingdom, research by GLA
Economics has identified a significant and potentially disconcerting recent
downturn for creative employment in London (GLA 2007). For ten years,
between 1991 and 2001, creative employment rose steeply for all three geo-
graphical areas. This pattern – and what it implied for the strength of this
sector – justified the plethora of advocacy documents and strategies found
by our survey not only for London but for many other cities and regions
across the globe. However, creative employment in London fell sharply after
2001, with the beginnings of a recovery seemingly taking place only in 2005.
Furthermore, this downturn was steeper in creative employment than for
London’s employment as a whole (Figure 7).
London’s creative employment downturn goes against the trends for
both the United Kingdom and ROSE. Upward growth continued in the
Rest of the UK and creative employment in ROSE did not experience the
same dramatic slump, as it appeared to recover quickly after a small dip in
2002. Initial explanations for these trends are emerging: the growth out-
side London may in large part be due to the expansion of those who are
‘creatively occupied outside the creative industries’ often in the public sec-
tor, which, as a whole, has been growing. There may also be a dispersal of
the creative industries from London into ROSE. The particular volatility (or
vulnerability) of London’s creative employment has been linked to recent
trends within the private sector. It is estimated that 47 per cent of all cre-
ative output is to supply ‘intermediate demand from business’ (GLA
2007). When there is a squeeze on the private-sector economy, creative
industries in London suffer disproportionately, suggesting that many of
the services and products offered by the creative industries are additional to
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Strategies for creative industries
Figure 7: Creative employment trends for London, ROSE, Outside the South East and Great Britain.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 109
core business activities and can be dispensed with when markets are con-
tracting. Data from 2005 indicate a levelling out of London’s creative
employment decline, with some sectors again growing (those in the audio-
visual, and books and press domains), but others not recovering so well
(those in the visual arts and performance domains) (GLA 2007).
London’s assured status as a creative city is beginning to look some-
what different as market pressures expose the systemic weaknesses within
the sector. Similar volatility in creative industries employment is evident in
other cities such as Berlin and Amsterdam following the dot.com fall out
from 2001. In the United States of America, jobless growth has been identi-
fied, where the number of creative firms and productivity have increased
but employment has fallen (Americans for the Arts 2005).
Other factors affecting the rate of growth of the creative economy in
London are common to many world cities, notably high property and start-
up costs. These are exacerbated by the gentrification (regeneration) of a
number of London’s inner city neighbourhoods, the dominant residential
market, declining suitable light industrial and affordable workspace premises,
coupled with the failure of live-work quotas. The impact of the Olympics
development is too early to assess, although short-term workspace losses
are already evident (Evans 2007).
More generally, London’s socio-economic, cultural and spatial divide is
also widening. London is high on Florida’s ‘inequality index’ (Florida 2005)
and creative industries employment does not reflect the city’s cultural
diversity – only 15 per cent of creative employees are from black and minority
ethnic communities (GLA 2007). Indications of creative employment losses
suggest dependency on fragile micro enterprises and a movement to outer
London and out of London. Policy initiatives and interventions (including
incubator and workspace initiatives, creative clusters and hubs, skills training
and business support) are too recent for their impacts to be fully assessed.
London’s links with international and UK regional city networks are –
despite London’s ‘world city’ status – less established than other European
and UK regional cities. Steps being taken to internationalize London’s cre-
ative industries profile and policy networks include international showcasing
(for film, music and fashion) and the establishment of London’s economic
development and inward investment offices and representatives in China.
The strong presence of higher education art and design research and prac-
tice in London is also not reflected in measures of innovation and R&D perfor-
mance. The United Kingdom scores low when compared with the United State
of America and other European countries (the United Kingdom is eighth in
Europe). Furthermore, productivity gains have not improved in line with the
United Kingdom’s competitors and there is little correlation between London’s
creative clusters and increased productivity. Finally, London, in common with
Barcelona, is at risk of generating an over-supply of art and design graduates
relative to employment opportunities. This, coupled with a general shortage of
investment and venture capital for new creative entrepreneurs, makes London
a difficult environment for the creative industries.
Conclusion
The survey of creative strategies and the city case studies have exposed
many of the contradictions embedded within creativity-led policy discourse.
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Creative industries are linked to anticipated growth and innovation and
have often been used to lever funds for more general structural or sector-
wide investment. In some cases this has deflected attention and invest-
ment away from cultural development and arts programmes or dedicated
creative industries strategies. The lack of comparability in data analysis
used to support creative strategies, their inconsistent definitions and appli-
cations of creative industries classifications, makes it difficult to truly
assess the relative contribution creative industries make to city, regional
and national economies. However, the survey did find a powerful drive
towards defining creativity and the creative industries in terms of IP,
although there was resistance to this where the social meaning of culture
had been specifically valued.
Support for ‘creative clusters’ that bring together public and private
institutions with enterprise growth and social (regeneration and inclu-
sion) goals proved to be increasingly popular at the city level. However,
the replication of creative clusters (media cities/digital hubs/creative
hubs/fashion quarters/cultural quarters) raises questions about an over-
supply of similarly targeted enterprises (within individual cities such as
London as well as between cities at the national and international scales)
and possibly unrealistic expectations of assuming an ever-expanding cre-
ative economy. As London’s creative employment dipped in the wake of a
private-sector downturn, it may be time to reassess the rush to become a
‘creative place’.
It is therefore likely that future creative strategies will require a more
sophisticated and realistic consideration of the role of the creative indus-
tries within the knowledge economy, including a deeper understanding of
the innovation and production linkages between the creative industries and
other sectors of the (not-so-new) knowledge economy. They would also
benefit from a greater consideration of the different outcomes that can be
anticipated from creative enterprise and cultural development programmes.
Finally, if the objective is to facilitate creative places, then more attention
needs to be paid to the particularities of locality. Creativity may be found
everywhere, but perhaps not all localities can become ‘creative places’ with
the competitive advantages that this implies.
Acknowledgements
Graeme Evans led the Cities Institute contribution to the Creative Spaces Project on
which this paper is based. Phyllida Shaw and Antje Witting provided invaluable
research support. Their contributions are gratefully acknowledged as are the com-
ments made by Graeme Harper on an earlier version of this paper.
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Weiping, W. (2005), Dynamic Cities and Creative Industries, World Bank Policy Research
Working Paper 3509, February.
Suggested citation
Foord, J. (2008), ‘Strategies for creative industries: an international review’, Creative
Industries Journal 1: 2, pp. 91–113, doi: 10.1386/cij.1.2.91/1
Contributor details
Jo Foord is a Principal Research Fellow at the Cities Institute, London Metropolitan
University, where she undertakes research on urban and regeneration issues.
Contact: Cities Institute, London Metropolitan University, Ladbroke House, 62-66
Highbury Grove, London, N5 2AD.
E-mail: [email protected]
113
Strategies for creative industries
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 113
doc_453405903.pdf
The paper presents the findings from an international survey of public policies and strategic plans to promote and support the development of the creative industries at city-regional level. The rationales and mechanisms employed, the shifting definitions of the cultural and creative economy and sectors adopted,are discussed in the context of the grand narrative of the 'creative city'.
Creative Industries Journal Volume 1 Number 2 © 2008 Intellect Ltd
Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/cij.1.2.91/1
Strategies for creative industries:
an international review
Jo Foord Cities Institute, London Metropolitan University
Abstract
The paper presents the findings from an international survey of public policies
and strategic plans to promote and support the development of the creative
industries at city-regional level. The rationales and mechanisms employed, the
shifting definitions of the cultural and creative economy and sectors adopted,
are discussed in the context of the grand narrative of the ‘creative city’. Case
studies of Barcelona, Berlin and London are presented, confirming spatial con-
centration across the creative industries, but also the continuing dependency on
public intervention in what is projected as a growing economic sector worldwide.
Policy emulation, but also confusion over classification and social objectives, is
evident. At the same time, creative industry employment growth has begun to
falter in key creative cities leading to the suggestion that the creative industries
are now subsumed into a more substantial and wider knowledge economy.
Introduction
The notion that creativity is a limitless resource is central to the current
popularity of creativity-led economic development and enterprise strate-
gies. The proliferation of designated creative places in recent years is testi-
mony to policy practitioners’ (and politicians’) belief that almost regardless
of local conditions they too can mobilize creativity to transform their
economies and communities (cf: current creative city strategies include
Creative Baltimore, Creative Toronto, Creative Sheffield, Creative New York and
Create Berlin). Many cite Creative London, a London Development Agency-
led initiative, as an influential model (LDA 2003).
This paper presents findings from an international comparative study of
policies aimed at developing creative enterprise and spaces.
1
It draws on a
survey of creative strategies to critically assess policy rationales and antici-
pated outcomes. In so doing the paper identifies the heightened interna-
tional focus on the creative economy as a growth sector, examines the
highly politicized shifting definitions between cultural and creative indus-
tries and the tendency to unthinkingly associate cultural and creative enter-
prise within a generic new knowledge economy. It also notes an increased
preoccupation with the Intellectual Property (IP) of content-based produc-
tion and services. Using city case studies the paper also traces the increas-
ing popularity of place-based creative cluster policies. These seek to make
‘creative spaces’ – areas within the city that are attractive to and help retain
creative enterprise. Finally it concludes with a brief assessment of the
future role of creative strategies in local economic development.
91 CIJ 1 (2) pp. 91–113 © Intellect Ltd 2008
1. This research was
commissioned by the
London Development
Agency (LDA), the
city of Toronto and
the Province of
Ontario Governments
(Ministries of
Economic
Development and
Culture). The project
was undertaken jointly
by Cities Institute,
London Metropolitan
University led by
Graeme Evans and
Meric Gertler, and
University of Toronto
between 2004 and
2006. Reports arising
are available at
www.creativelondon.
org and www.
citiesinstitute.org/
creativespaces.
‘Evidence’ was taken
to mean substantial
and substantiated
policy/strategy docu-
ments, research
Keywords
creative industries
creative cities
creative spaces
strategies
policy interventions
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 91
Policy rationales
The survey of creative strategies produced a searchable database of individ-
ual creative initiatives and included any cited research and evaluation stud-
ies. One of the key selection criteria for inclusion in the database was a
focus on developing creative enterprise. Yet further analysis of the main
policy rationales showed that alongside economic development there were
several other policy rationales (Figure 1). Many of these had different and
arguably contradictory strategic goals: social inclusion; development of
social capital; community cultural programming; creation of tourist venues
and visitor economies. Some strategies were specifically directed at enabling
application for specific funding opportunities (in Europe, the European
Regional Development Fund [ERDF] for infrastructure investment; the
European Social Fund [ESF] for training and social support; in developing
areas, the World Bank for strategic investment). Here the prioritization of
creative industries was often little more than flagging a high profile economic
sector to facilitate the bidding process. This form of instrumentalism raises
questions about the types of infrastructure and programmes funded and
their relevance to the creative industries.
Underlying the cited policy rationales were two dominant assumptions
about the creative sector, both of which continue to drive the adoption of
creative enterprise strategies around the world: growth and innovation.
The first assumption was expressed through claims that creative firms
and employment are growing faster than those in any other sector.
Measured in terms of employment change and gross domestic product
(GDP)/gross value added (GVA) growth rates, creative industries were pre-
sented as important both in absolute terms and as a rising proportion of
national and regional economies. Creative employment was identified as
most significant at city level, indicating not only the high concentration of
creative enterprise in cities but also the competitive importance of particu-
lar creative cities (cities with higher than national levels of creative employ-
ment). For example, the stated level of creative industry employment in
Austria was 4 per cent but 14 per cent in Vienna; 3 per cent in Germany but
92
Jo Foord
reviews of practice
and evaluation
documentation. An
extensive policy
analysis and literature
review led to the
development
of a web-based
searchable database
(approximately 300
separate entries),
which also serves as a
research and policy
resource. This was
supplemented by
interviews and
communication
with practitioners,
policy-makers
(cultural/creative, eco-
nomic development,
city promotion), field
visits to UK and other
European cities, and
finally in-depth case
studies of six cities
in Europe and North
America, three of
which are drawn on in
this paper (Barcelona,
Berlin and London).
Figure 1: Primary policy rationale for creative industry policy (n = 300).
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 92
8 per cent in Berlin; 4 per cent in Finland but 8.5 per cent in Helsinki;
3.9 per cent in the Netherlands but 6.9 per cent in Amsterdam; 5 per cent in
the United Kingdom but 8 per cent in London; 2.2 per cent in the United
States of America but 8.1 per cent in New York and so on. Creative employ-
ment growth rates, cited over individually selected time periods, also varied
widely: 5.7 per cent (1996–2003) for Amsterdam; 6 per cent (1999–2003)
for Vienna; 7 per cent (1998–2002) for Berlin; 13 per cent (1998–2002) for
New York; 5 per cent p.a. (1995–2000) for London; 13.4 per cent (1986–2000)
for Singapore; 17 per cent (1999–2003) for Shanghai; and 22 per cent
(1999–2001) for Glasgow. Although comparison of national and city data is
limited by the different time scales, this was unacknowledged in advocacy
documents where relative rates were highlighted to make the case for
strategic intervention.
This lack of transparency was exacerbated by the inclusion of different
activities within the creative industries. For example, Glasgow’s cited high
growth rate had much to do with the inclusion of a wide range of informa-
tion and communication technologies (ICT)-related activities. Similarly, in
some strategies, growth rates were quoted without any accompanying data,
thus obscuring the relatively low levels of creative employment or GVA.
Nevertheless, growth rates cited from previously published strategies were
frequently repeated in support of new initiatives.
The second assumption was a perceived potential for high levels of
innovation in the creative industries (more accurately the creation of
new Intellectual Property – IP). Reference to the knowledge economy
was included in most creative strategies with acknowledgement of the
increasing role of intangibles (ideas, tacit knowledge, networks – all
difficult-to-define entities with few or no material qualities) and short-
term project-based/high risk-orientated working. The creative industries
were then assumed to offer a limitless supply of new ideas for potential
products – feeding into and from increasingly diverse material cultures
and media.
In the majority of cases, justification for claiming high rates of innova-
tion in the creative sector was based neither on quantitative measures nor
case study evidence. More commonly, policy and strategy documents pro-
filed individual examples of enterprise or product success (often associated
with computer games or design) and examples of locations that had high
profiles in cutting-edge industries (mostly Silicon Valley or its clones).
The politics (and economics) of definitions
One of the major problems in identifying and evaluating (as well as devel-
oping and implementing) creative enterprise strategies in cities, is the fluid
nature of the terms ‘cultural industries’ and ‘creative industries’. In the sur-
veyed strategies these were often used either together as ‘cultural and cre-
ative industries’ or interchangeably. This overlap was most notable in city or
regional initiatives where the term creative industries was used to identify
the sector focus of an initiative but the data and case studies were drawn
from the cultural industries (usually dominated by the arts and grant-
aided/not-for-profit organizations).
This confusion was magnified where there were shifting policy and
governance regimes – often imposed from national, rather than city or
93
Strategies for creative industries
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 93
regional, guidance. These shifts usually required local cultural practition-
ers to work within a creative enterprise agenda. Many creative strategies
illustrated the struggle cultural practitioners had in putting their concerns
within this framework. Likewise, few of those working in the commercial
creative industries – publishing, architecture, advertising, film/TV etc –
identified with a collective creative industries sector, preferring instead to
remain associated with their own professional and industry fields (and
markets).
The label ‘creative industries’ was first used in Australia to signpost the
significant interface between commercial cultural activity and the emerging
new media driven by technological change. This label brought to the fore-
front the enterprise dynamics of these activities (risk-taking, self-starting,
ideas-driven, lifestyle-based) and their resonance with the new knowledge
economy (Cunningham 2002). In the United Kingdom, the term creative
industries was extended in the 1990s to highlight the economic contribu-
tion of commercial cultural production, leisure activities and entertainment
as well as the economic potential of many subsidized cultural activities
(GLC 1985; DCMS 1998). The most referenced UK Department for Culture,
Media and Sport (DCMS) definition included a wide range of activities
combining originality and IP with profitability (DCMS 1998, 2001, 2004).
2
The list of thirteen activities emphasized the breadth of the creative indus-
tries and has become a benchmark for identifying creative industries inter-
nationally as well as at regional, sub-regional and city levels within the
United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.
3
Similar advocacy strategies for identifying the scope of the creative
industries have been adopted in Australia and New Zealand using
approaches derived from the UK DCMS.
4
However, there is a debate, par-
ticularly in Australia, over the transferability of this approach (Stevenson
2004; Gibson and Klocker 2004). An alternative model has been developed
in an attempt to capture locally significant IP through patents and trade-
marks (industrial or commercial production) and copyrights and design-
rights (cultural activity). This focus on different forms of IP has been
accelerated by the growing importance of digital technology and the fusion
of creative content with new delivery platforms. In New Zealand, criticism
of the UK DCMS methodology has emphasized the absence of robust sta-
tistics. This has led to a more cautious approach and a simplified mapping
using ten instead of thirteen creative industry descriptors.
5
Both Hong Kong and Singapore have adapted the DCMS definitions,
tailoring these to capture the local importance of IT and digital media
(Hong Kong) and arts and culture with design and media (Singapore).
China more generally, and Beijing in particular, has adopted the Australian
definition of creative industries with six industrial groupings forming the
basis of their mapping exercises. Core elements of the creative industries –
entertainment software, film and television, music publishing, book pub-
lishing, audio-visual and multimedia – have been grouped together as the
‘copyright industries’ in the United States of America (Siwek 2004).
However, Americans for the Arts promotes analysis of creative industries as
‘arts centric businesses’, defining creative industries as ‘both for-profit and
non-profit businesses involved in the creation or distribution of the arts’
(2005:1).
6
This definition purposely blurs the distinction between commercial
94
Jo Foord
2. DCMS (1998, 2001,
2004) creative indus-
tries classification:
advertising,
architecture, art
and antiques, crafts,
design, designer
fashion, film and
video, interactive
leisure software,
television and radio,
performing arts,
music and software
and related computer
services. www.culture.
gov.uk/global/research/
det/glossary_
abbreviations.htm
3. Examples are South
East Cultural
Consortium/SEEDA
Creative and Cultural
Industries: An
Economic Impact
Study for SE England
(2002); GEMACA 11,
INTERREG IIC
Programme (2001/2).
4. In Australia,
Queensland has
defined creative indus-
tries as six interrelated
sets of industries:
music composition
and production;
film, television and
entertainment
software (including
animation and
computer games);
performing arts;
writing, publishing
and print media;
advertising, graphic
design and marketing;
architecture, visual
arts and design – www.
premiers.qld.gov.au.
5. The NZ Institute of
Economic Research’s
Creative Industries
in New Zealand –
Economic Contribution.
Report to Industry
New Zealand (2002)
lists advertising,
software and
computer services
(including leisure
software), publishing,
television and radio,
architecture, design,
designer fashion,
music and performing
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 94
enterprises and non-commercial arts and cultural activities – although
the privatized fundraising regimes of not-for-profit art and culture makes
them closer to the enterprise economy than European state-funded cultural
institutions (Caves 2000). Consequently, the ranking of creative cities in
North America incorporated employment, enterprise, innovation, technol-
ogy and growth from copyright and so-called arts-centric businesses
(Florida 2002).
The creative strategies survey also found that mechanisms for legal reg-
istration of IP were increasingly important. The World Bank’s approach was
to identify products and outputs that were ‘protectable under some form of
intellectual property law’ (Weiping 2005). The most significant creative
industries for the World Bank were therefore: software, multimedia, video
games, industrial design, fashion, publishing, and research and develop-
ment (R&D) – all defined by the legal processes of owning creative content.
Concern with defining and controlling IP was particularly evident in strate-
gies emerging from the United States, Australia and Singapore, and increas-
ingly China. Here, state-regulated legal and institutional frameworks were
identified as necessary to creative industries’ development. For cities,
regions or countries with less well organized institutional and legal struc-
tures this has been noted as a growing barrier to market entry (Healy 2002).
Cultural or creative industries?
In contrast, the UN international trade and development agency, the United
Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), made a dis-
tinction between the creative industries that derived value from copyright-
ing and distributing creative content, and the cultural industries that
generated creative content in a local context through literary, visual and per-
forming arts (UNCTAD 2004). This distinction was critical for those devis-
ing creative strategies in developing areas where the creative resource was
identified as located in local (indigenous) culture, rather than in the pro-
duction processes of global creative industries.
There was a similar rejection of a copyright-based definition of creative
industries and advocacy of cultural industries by some policy practitioners
in the Asian Pacific region (UNESCO 2004). Cultural industries were seen
to ‘...use creativity, cultural knowledge and intellectual property to produce
products and services with social and cultural meaning’ (UNESCO 2004).
This definition emerged in response to fears of exploitation of local cultures
(through Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) mechanisms) by global creative
industries based in advanced economies. This concern was not limited to
emerging economies. In strategies emerging from Canada, at federal and
provincial level, creative enterprises also remained within the scope of the
cultural industries.
7
Use of the term ‘cultural’ rather than ‘creative’ industries was therefore a
key discriminator for those wishing to prioritize the social meaning of cul-
tural production, distribution and participation, including ideas of collective
ownership of culture and the significance of not-for-profit production. This
concern has been reflected in the academic debate with forceful argument
being put forward for the use of the term ‘cultural industries’. Andy Pratt (2004)
argues that the value of this perspective is that it seeks to present cultural
outputs as the result of collective innovation by a number of participants
95
Strategies for creative industries
arts, visual arts (arts,
crafts and antiques).
6. Americans for the
Arts’ (2004, 2005)
Congressional Report
on the Creative
Industries has taken a
conservative approach
to defining the
creative industries by
including only those
businesses involved
with the production
or distribution of the
arts. They include
museums and collec-
tions, performing
arts, visual arts and
photography, film,
radio and TV, design
and publishing, and
arts schools and
services.
7. Canadian Framework
for Cultural Statistics
(2004) includes writ-
ten media, the film
industry, broadcasting,
sound recording and
music publishing,
performing arts,
visual arts, crafts,
architecture, photog-
raphy, design,
advertising,
museums, art
galleries, archives,
libraries and cultural
education.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 95
whose participation is various, but linked together by the organization of
production. The European Parliament has retained this emphasis on the cul-
tural industries. Until recently, culture was at the heart of the European pro-
ject with funding through structural funds (ERDF) often going to support
major cultural projects and industries. These were frequently linked to
culture-led regeneration or city (re)branding in the Mediterranean and north-
ern post-industrial cities and associated with the development of visitor
economies. In 2005, the European Commission proposed that the ‘creative
industries’ should be viewed as a sub-set of the ‘cultural industries’, retain-
ing the cultural agenda for Europe (European Commission 2005).
Within Europe, individual regions and cities have selectively identified
specific cultural or creative industries for promotion and development (for
example, art and design in Barcelona; media in Munich; film in Paris; adver-
tising in Lisbon; fashion and design in Milan; music technology in
Stockholm) or devised their own definitions linked to locally significant
industrial sectors such as ICT (Oslo and Stockholm) or arts production
(Helsinki). Some quota systems operate at national (France) and regional
levels (Catalonia), particularly to protect indigenous language production in
broadcast media and film. The United Kingdom is the only European mem-
ber state to define and prioritize the creative industries in national policy.
Classification matters
Identifying the scope of the creative or cultural industries to be included in a
creative strategy was hindered further by the inadequacy of national and
international industrial classification systems.
8
Categories of industrial eco-
nomic activity are based on the output of an industry or industrial group (its
product or service) and its process of production (manufacture or service).
Classification systems have been built up over time and are subject to
national and international agreement. They reflect a detailed understanding
of the subdivisions in manufacturing activity but a less robust knowledge of
the fast-moving service-related industries (though this is less so in North
America).
9
Employment in each industry includes all those working in that
sector, regardless of their job or role. Most creative strategies took a prag-
matic approach and selectively identified creative industries, often cutting
across existing industrial groupings. However, the inclusion of a large num-
ber of non-creative employees was unavoidable. This did lead to an exagger-
ation of the creative nature of some ‘creative’ industries, for example
through the inclusion of tasks relating to the routine aspects of digital media
and audio-visual production as well as many distribution-related activities.
National administrative data on employment and enterprises tends to
undercount small and medium size enterprises as well as micro businesses
and sole traders. Yet the surveyed creative strategies and initiatives almost
universally recognized that these groups were the mainstay of the creative
sector and central to its growth and innovation potential. In order to cap-
ture sole traders and micro business in their evidence base, many creative
initiatives at city or local level commissioned local snap-shot surveys to
supplement or even replace national data. These local surveys were variable
in quality and tended to adopt their own categorization of creative indus-
tries. Some were supplemented by trade association data, thus potentially
double counting enterprises and exaggerating the size of the sector.
96
Jo Foord
8. Standard Industrial
Classification (SIC
2003); International
Standard Industrial
Classification of All
Economic Activities
(ISIC 2002);
Classification of
Economic Activities
in the European
Community (NACE
2002); North
American Industrial
Classification System
(NAICS); Australia
and New Zealand
Standard Industrial
Classification.
9. See for example the
North American
Product Classification
(NAPC).
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 96
A significant number of strategies also drew on research documents and
academic publications that have suggested an alternative occupational
approach to defining creative activity. This work focuses on the perceived
importance of creative occupations in a knowledge-driven economy and has
identified specific jobs and tasks that are central to the creation of new
ideas, new technologies and new content. It has been noted that many of
these creative occupations require high educational achievement and subse-
quently attract high wages (DTI 2004; Florida 2002; Markusen and Schrock
2001). The scope of creative occupations is also seen as wider than that of
the creative industries. Workers in these occupations can be employed out-
side narrowly defined creative industries just as many employees in the cre-
ative industries are not required to produce creative content or work
creatively. This occupational approach was fuelled by Richard Florida’s iden-
tification of talent as a key component of his creativity index. His work mea-
sured the proportion of the creative class (sic) in the labour force (for city,
region or nation).
10
It has also had a major impact on creative enterprise pol-
icy. Strategies aimed at attracting and/or retaining particular (talented and
creative) people were more prevalent. These ranged from industry-related
training and education initiatives (for example, Helsinki Arts and Design
College, Arabianranta; University Pobra Fabra, Barcelona; ‘Retaining Creative
Talent’, Scotland) to proposals and plans for wholesale neighbourhood change
led by cultural projects (such as the transformations of La Raval and
Poblenou in Barcelona and the development of the cultural/consumption-led
urban quarters of the Museumquarter in Vienna).
Where strategies identified creative workers and creative occupations as
a target for intervention, problems similar to those identified for industrial
classifications and employment arose (see above). Occupational classifica-
tions do not reflect current jobs especially within the rapidly evolving cre-
ative sector.
11
Identification of creative occupations and measurement of
creative talent relies on manipulating existing occupational and labour mar-
ket categories and therefore is limited. Nevertheless, Florida’s ‘talent index’
was applied to city ranking across North America and Europe (Florida and
Tingali 2004), and was a popular reference for policy practitioners, particu-
larly in places where the creative industries agenda had already been taken
up (for example Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and China).
12
Attempts to find analytical coherence for the scope of the creative indus-
tries and creative occupations is a messy, often retrospective task. Those
policy practitioners who worked across existing classificatory boundaries
assembled data from a wide variety of sources. Creative strategies and poli-
cies have tended to refer to this evidence as if it was well founded and veri-
fied. This was not always the case.
Types of intervention
Further analysis of the survey results indicated that practical interventions
cited within the creative strategies could be grouped by one of six broad
categories:
i. Property and Premises Strategies
ii. Business Development, Advice and Network Building
iii. Direct Grants and Loans Schemes to Creative Business/Entrepreneurs
97
Strategies for creative industries
10. www.creativeclass.org
11. The DCMS (www.
culture.gov.uk/global/
research/det/soc) and
Canadian Statistics
(Cultural Framework
2004 Appendix C)
have listed their
selections of creative
occupations using
the Standard
Occupational
Classification.
12. www.creativeclass.org
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 97
iv. Fiscal Initiatives
v. Physical and IT Infrastructure
vi. Soft Infrastructure
These categories are not exclusive, but they provide a profile of the main
types of intervention and therefore the mechanisms used to promote and
support creative enterprise in particular localities. Many of the interven-
tions are familiar types of economic development support common to
generic business support initiatives – providing workspace and training,
advice, networking and loans, business management skills and creative
education, access to trade events and new technology. Some were specific
to the creative sector – including fiscal incentives such as tourist taxes and
percent for art used to raise finance for public investment in arts infrastruc-
ture or direct tax credits for creative artists.
As with generic support services, many of the business support initia-
tives for the creative sector were directed at start-up businesses, mico or
small and medium-sized enterprises and were managed by intermediary
public or voluntary sector agencies. Where the particular needs of the cre-
ative industries were highlighted, these tended to emphasize the peculiari-
ties of the creative process and the lack of business awareness amongst
practitioners. Interventions were framed within the language of enterprise
development, but in some cases appeared to be a response to growing
market failure, particularly in traditional craft-based industries lagging
behind in process and product innovation.
The soft interventions of advice, skills and enterprise training for start-
ups and entry level employment dominated. Higher level interventions in
technology infrastructure, international marketing and IP legal frameworks
were rare. Strategies were mostly directed towards the aspirations of creative
economies based on small firms in arts and crafts or new media, and within
the goals of local area-based regeneration policy. They did not address the
needs of large, private-sector creative firms trading in the commercial cre-
ative sectors (such as advertising, film, mainstream fashion) and through
global networks, even though this is where the lion’s share of market,
employment and innovation activity is found. There was evidence also of a
sustained public subsidy of intermediary agencies engaged in delivering
these interventions. Many in the European Assistance Areas were supported
by ERDF funding, suggesting entrenched public sector dependency.
Several creative strategies included statements outlining how the suc-
cess of such initiatives should be assessed. These included generalized
statements on how sustained the initiative proved to be, how far it inte-
grated with other economic initiatives, whether or not it elicited city growth,
how far it involved and benefited the creative sector and how responsive it
was to economic and political change. However, standard evaluation
methodologies and tools can rarely fully assess such desired outcomes.
The promotion of creative strategies and the proliferation of supportive
interventions (sometimes with not insubstantial funds attached) coincided
with the ascendancy of business cluster strategies
13
linked to local growth
agendas. Drawing on the influential ideas of Michael Porter, support for
‘creative clusters’ was included in strategies where policy support for the
creative industries had been established.
98
Jo Foord
13. Cluster policies
and strategies are
widespread across
developed economies
and have developed
from the work of
Porter on competitive
advantage (1990,
1995, 1996). Porter
has developed the
concept of the cluster
‘diamond’, which
identifies the interde-
pendent conditions in
which cluster develop-
ment can lead to
increased productivity.
This includes the
local context, inputs,
demand and related
and support
industries. The DTI
(UK) have a cluster
strategy – Business
Clusters in the UK
(2001) www.dti.gov.
uk/clusters; IKED
(2004) The Cluster
Policies White
Book provides an
international review
of cluster policies
and strategies and
offers a toolkit for
measurement and
evaluation; The
Institute for Strategy
and Competitiveness
at Harvard Business
School runs an
international
cluster project
www.isc.hbs.edu.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 98
Integrated strategies: creative clusters?
From the strategies reviewed, a ‘creative cluster’ was largely taken to mean
a linked grouping of creative industries, firms and/or cultural activities that
had a spatial concentration. Geographical proximity was identified as par-
ticularly important, especially in clusters dominated by creative small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) and micro businesses. These were based on
specialized craft or new digital practices, or where work was predominantly
organized around short-term projects or labour flexibility and where labour
market information was deemed critically important. These assumptions
about how a creative cluster worked were replicated time and again with lit-
tle confirmatory evidence.
Current research and policy toolkits on creative industry clusters focus
on the creative production chain (United Kingdom) and cultural chain
(Canada) (Pratt 2004; DCMS 2004; Statistics Canada 2004). However,
these tend to miss the wider interdependencies of a ‘creative cluster’ with
cultural institutions and educational programmes – especially higher edu-
cation in the creative arts.
National and trans-national cluster policy research has identified gen-
eral creative industries clusters centred on major conurbations throughout
Europe (GEMACA II 2002) and in the United Kingdom centred on London
(DTI 2003). Some regional spatial and economic strategies have identified
localized creative sectors, for example games software and digital media in
central Scotland. At city level, creative cluster strategies were associated
with particular industries (film/TV in Los Angeles; jewellery in London;
fashion in Paris) or with assembling cultural premises (cultural industry
quarters in Sheffield, Amsterdam, Helsinki, Glasgow) or a mixture of the
two, for example ‘creative hubs’ in London – although the United Kingdom
as a whole has now been named a global ‘creative hub’ (DCMS 2006).
Some cluster-led creative strategies have sought to address the measure-
ment of cluster scope and geographical reach, although this has proved
problematic at the sub-regional level.
14
The stage in the development cycle is one way of evaluating the
strength of a cluster. In conventional cluster analysis, the stages of clus-
ter development have been identified as Embryonic, Established, Mature,
Declining, based on levels of employment and output, depth of inter-firm
linkages and the significance and reach of business and consumer mar-
kets.
15
The creative industries clusters identified in the surveyed strate-
gies were found to be Embryonic when judged against conventional
business cluster evaluation. However, it was evident that creative clus-
ters are not conventional business clusters and additional factors were
critical to their development and form (especially the role of publicly
funded arts and cultural institutions). The strategic aims of creative clus-
ters and therefore the anticipated outcomes were different from conven-
tional business clusters. Creative clusters had social as well as enterprise
objectives – goals of inclusion, cultural development, as well as enter-
prise growth.
Four types of development for creative clusters emerged from the sur-
vey of creative strategies: Dependent, Aspirational, Emergent and Mature.
These are summarized in Table 1 below, illustrating the roles of the public
sector, nature of markets and firm size as key differential factors.
99
Strategies for creative industries
14. For example the City
Fringe Partnership –
City Growth Strategy
(DTI Small Business
Service); Department
of Communications,
Information
Technology and the
Arts/National Office
for the Information
Economy, Australia
Creative Industries
Cluster Study.
15. This is used by the
UK DTI (now BERR),
however, others
use Agglomerating,
Emerging, Developing,
Mature and
Transforming to note
the life cycle of cluster
development – IKED
(2004) The Cluster
Policies White Book.
See also www.isc.
hbs. edu.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 99
The majority of the creative cluster initiatives in the surveyed creative
strategies were Dependent (for example, Sheffield Creative Industries
Quarter; St Petersburg Creative Industries Development Centre; Seoul
Digital Media City; Taipei Creative Industries Cluster) or Aspirational
(Brisbane Creative Precinct; The Digital Hub and MediaLab, Dublin;
Leipzig Media Cluster; West Kowloon Cultural Centre, Hong Kong;
Creative Gateway, King’s Cross London). Many were essentially cultural
quarters made up of assorted cultural consumption venues and not-for-
profit arts activities with limited SME creative enterprise activity (for
example, Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam; The Veemarktkwartier, Tilburg).
Some were Emergent, especially where astute commercialization of inno-
vations had taken place with infrastructural support (for example the
film/TV sector in Glasgow). Few were Mature and where these did exist
there was a notable absence of active policy intervention (for example,
film/TV production in Los Angeles; fashion and furniture in Milan; fash-
ion in New York).
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Jo Foord
Stage Definitions
1. Dependent Creative enterprises developed as a direct result of public
sector intervention through business support, infrastructure
development for cultural consumption and finance to
SME/micro creative enterprises.
Public subsidy required to sustain the cluster.
Limited and underdeveloped local markets.
2. Aspirational Some independent creative enterprises and/or privatized
former public sector cultural enterprises in place but limited
in scale and scope.
Underdeveloped local markets and limited consumption
infrastructure.
High levels of public and institutional ‘boosterist’ promo-
tional activity.
3. Emergent Initiated by growing number and scale of creative enterprises
with infrastructural investment from the public sector.
Developing local and regional markets with visible cultural
consumption.
Some internationalization of market reach.
4. Mature Led by established large-scale creative enterprises in specific
industries with established sub-contracting linkages and
highly developed national and international markets.
Business-to-business consumption.
Arms-length public intervention.
Table 1: Creative cluster development.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 100
Often the adoption of a cluster approach drew little from Porter other
than the label. His emphasis on capitalizing local advantages for enterprise
development was replaced in practice by attempts to facilitate interaction
between existing and potential enterprises, possible cultural consumption
and the aspirations of the local policy regime. From the evidence reviewed
it was the strength of the relationships between these three elements that
characterized and sustained an effective creative cluster initiative especially
where it was expected to deliver social as well as economic objectives.
In the absence of one or more of these three elements, creative clusters
were unlikely to establish or grow in a sustained way. If one or more ele-
ment dominated, the creative cluster became unbalanced, and wider strate-
gic (policy or industry) objectives were neither achieved nor sustained. The
interdependence between public and private sectors was particularly
acute where creativity was embedded both in the processes and products
of the cluster. This was also a factor in cluster growth where public subsidy
and procurement underpinned both markets and cultural activity.
For example, higher education emerged strongly in both Mature and
Emergent creative clusters. University, vocational and technical training hubs,
encompassing education and training facilities, R&D, incubation/start-up
companies, consumer education in taste and trends all had key roles to play.
Here, innovation was closely related to R&D-higher education-industry hubs
and partnerships, in both creative and ‘non-creative’ production. Similarly,
public-private cooperation was critical to Emergent creative clusters (insti-
gated by either sector). Notable examples included MedienCampus Bayern
centred on Munich, the ‘Internet city in Germany’, founded by thirteen lead-
ing media firms, education and industry associations in 1988; and
22@Media, Barcelona’s new media city in the former manufacturing district
of Poblenou, a joint venture between a private-sector company, MediaPro, an
art and design university, University Pobra Fabra, and the city of Barcelona.
City case studies – creative clusters everywhere
The survey of creative strategies found that cluster development was
increasingly at the forefront of city-level interventions. A cluster approach
was often adopted where there was also a ‘knowledge city’ and/or a ‘knowl-
edge economy’ strategy driving mainstream economic development and
inward investment policy. This section of the paper draws on three (of six)
in-depth case studies undertaken for this project.
16
These case studies are
of European cities and represent contrasting political, cultural and eco-
nomic systems as well as scales of creative sector development. However,
all the cities sought to reinforce their regional and international status
through their advocacy of creative and cultural enterprise.
Barcelona
Barcelona is often used as an exemplar of how to do ‘culture-led regenera-
tion’ – it has also developed a reputation for design-based creativity, event-
led business tourism and cultural consumption. The primary role of historic
and modern architecture, city design and public realm in policy have generated
a powerful mix driving the physical reconstruction and rebranding of the
city supported by a strong city/regional political consensus. The higher edu-
cation sector is strongly represented in the city with a number of specialist
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Strategies for creative industries
16. The full case studies
are available from
www.creativelondon.
org.uk.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 101
design and architecture institutions attracting rising numbers of students.
The city’s cultural plan promotes Barcelona as one cultural project, bring-
ing together civic, creative enterprise and territorial initiatives. This is an
outward-looking strategy linking Barcelona into European and global city
(political and practitioner) networks (for example, the City Mayors Forum,
the Global Cities Network and the UNESCO Creative Cities Network).
The knowledge economy, defined by the city as cultural, communica-
tion, professional and design services, has been identified as the driver of
considerable employment growth in Barcelona, especially since 2003 and
particularly in the wider metropolitan area. Although Catalonia accounts
for 28 per cent of the cultural industries employment in Spain, only 2 per
cent of national employment is in this sector (third lowest in the core fif-
teen EU states). They represent just 1 per cent of all firms in Catalonia,
generating an estimated 1.2 per cent of GVA. However, a 20 per cent
increase in the GVA from cultural industries is claimed for 1998–2001.
Dominant sectors are audio-visual and publishing, with the largest
growth claimed for film and TV (post-liberalization) and the visual arts
(albeit from a very low base). Most growth has been based in the wider
Barcelona Metropolitan Area (BMA), indicating less concentration in the
city itself. 75 per cent of Catalonia’s ICT, professional design and arts and
entertainment employment is in the BMA – accounting for 5 per cent of
all employment. The creative sector is no bigger than other European
cities (though high for Spain). This is perhaps surprising for a city popu-
larly known for its creativity.
A recent study of creative industries in Barcelona has plotted the clus-
tering of creative enterprise within the city (Figure 2) (InterArts 2004). This
suggests that particular districts have their own creative specializations and
this has been associated with the existing neighbourhood variations in pub-
lic-private infrastructure. These are largely Aspirational creative clusters with
low levels of enterprise activity but strong links with distinctive neighbour-
hood cultures (for example in Gracia and Ciutat Vella).
This tradition of neighbourhood underpins the current strategy to
develop a new digital media locality in the former industrial district of
Poblenou. This initiative is being led by the city (in a joint public-private
initiative, see above) through the development of workspace/incubator
facilities and training, as well as in a grant-aid programme and venture
capital investment. There is a long-term public investment commitment in
the 22@ Media City through support for new higher education and inno-
vation projects. This suggests that this creative cluster will be Dependent
for some time.
There are weaknesses in Barcelona’s creative economy. It is not diversi-
fied and is over-concentrated in architecture, art and design, although
film/TV and radio and live theatre are re-emerging. High-risk infrastructure
investment strategies are being pursued, albeit with private-sector partners,
in highly competitive sectors in which the city neither has established
strengths nor, as yet, a critical mass.
The strain on the old city is also evident in terms of loss of housing, ris-
ing gentrification, endemic street crime, overcrowding and traffic conges-
tion. Economic growth is taking place in the metropolitan region, leaving
new migrant areas potentially isolated and ghettoized. The city does not
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CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 102
have a multicultural approach or strategy, and the transition from a cultur-
ally autonomous to a cosmopolitan city is a political challenge. Major
urban projects (including the UNESCO Culture Forum and Poblenou develop-
ments) have not received universal support and there has been resistance
from incumbent communities. There are also few professional creative
intermediaries with networks to support creative enterprise. The city takes
a municipal rather than an enabling role, although recent initiatives have
recognized the need for arms-length intervention and greater industry-led
activity in cluster development.
Despite an impressive long-term strategic plan, policy evaluation,
statistical data collection and measurement methodologies are neither
integrated nor established across the tiers of government, nor identified
with a measurable creative production chain. However, the publication
of general cultural indicators in the annual report of the Cultural Institute
and the Barcelona Statistical Yearbook is beginning to provide the basis
for longitudinal analysis. The development of cultural indicators as part
of the adoption of the Agenda 21 for Culture (ICB 2004) may also enable
a more robust review of the Strategic Plan objectives and progress.
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Strategies for creative industries
Figure 2: Creative enterprise clusters in Barcelona.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 103
Berlin
Berlin has experienced more recent change than perhaps any other
European city. After reunification, the city regained capital status but finan-
cial deficit and political uncertainty has created both an identity and policy-
implementation vacuum. Berlin is a city still in flux.
The publication of the city’s first Creative Industries in Berlin Report
(Berlin Senate 2005) sparked a local debate on the role of creativity in the
economy. The creative economy is estimated to employ 8 per cent of the
workforce (80,000 people excluding 20,000 to 30,000 self-employed
artists, designers and sole traders) and to produce 11 per cent of Berlin’s
GDP compared to 3.6 per cent of German GDP. Creativity has been high-
lighted as a major production factor.
A new media and related industries cluster has been identified in inner
East Berlin, with multimedia firms co-locating at building and street level
(for example on Chausee-Strasse – ‘Silicon Allee’). This co-location is
assumed to generate cross-fertilization within the creative production and
value chain, creating what Stefan Kratke coins, a ‘space of opportunities’
(Kratke 2002). Leading companies in the communication and media sector
are relocating alongside privatized public corporations and for many young
and creative media experts Berlin is the sought-after location. Recent loca-
tional analysis by Marco Mundelius (2006) has identified significant clus-
tering of both software/multimedia and film/video firms in Kreuzberg,
Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg – all central border districts that experienced dis-
investment prior to unification (Figure 3). Berlin aims to build on this clus-
tering to become Germany’s media metropolis through major strategic
infrastructural investment in the MEDIACITY, Adlershof in the south-east of
the city. This pioneering location is playing an increasingly important role in
the development of this production-driven cluster. Using the typology of
creative clusters (see above), Berlin’s media sector appears to be an
Emergent creative cluster.
The district of Prenzlauer Berg is part of the borough of Pankow and is
said to have replaced Kreuzberg (which has experienced recent decline and
social tension) as the up-and-coming residential creative district, in which
many artists live/work and galleries and bars co-exist. A multicultural milieu
has emerged, as 6.4 per cent of people who live in Pankow have a national-
ity other than German. Together, Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg are promoted
by their local administrations as the creative centre of Berlin, with 13,000
people said to be working in the creative and cultural industries. High pub-
lic investment in education and the large number of specialist freelance
workers located in these areas are seen as strengths, as is a robust public
infrastructure. But the lack of marketing expertise has resulted in the under-
exploitation of entrepreneurial potential and a very low degree of interna-
tionalization of the cluster. Only a small fraction of sales income is said to
be achieved in foreign markets. Creative production is inward looking to
local (Berlin) markets. Creative enterprises are more likely to struggle with
access to funding than those in other sectors and there are management-
skills deficits. These are the characteristics of an Aspirational creative clus-
ter. Moving from ‘creative scene’ to creative enterprise is proving a big step.
Active strategies to encourage creative clustering and entrepreneurship
have been identified as key areas for city-level public intervention.
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105
Strategies for creative industries
Figure 3: Creative clusters in Berlin.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 105
However, structural weaknesses in the city will hinder this intervention.
The city has a large budget deficit and has instituted public expenditure cuts.
There is high un/under-employment and significant levels of worklessness
despite attracting highly skilled and educated migrants from across Europe
and North America. There is a lack of faith and trust in local politicians, born
out of both the deficit crisis and accusations of property speculation (and
corruption). The city is becoming divided between social and ethnic groups,
introducing new issues of social inclusion for the administration. There is no
overall strategic policy framework for the city, so the ability of policy-led
intervention to influence economic development has been limited in the
past. Berlin’s creative economy has been organic and anarchic, so evaluation
of ‘success’ and measurement of scale are problematic. Berlin has competi-
tive advantages (location, availability of premises, high educational attain-
ment), however, the current problems suggest that it will be another decade
before its creative city role and status embeds and matures.
London
London has championed the creative industries within its economy since
the late 1980s. This has increased in intensity since the first DCMS Creative
Industries Mapping Document was published in 1998. Headline claims used
to support the Creative London Action Plan (Creative London 2006) suggest
that, since the late 1990s, annual increases in employment were 5 per cent,
with 8.5 per cent for output and 4 per cent for improved productivity in the
creative sector – out-performing all other sectors of the economy. The
Action Plan cites creative industries as responsible for 15.9 per cent of
London’s GVA, one in five new jobs in the creative industries and 450,000
‘creative’ employees (Creative London 2006: 5).
Research undertaken by GLA Economics (GLA 2007) confirms that
London and the Rest of the South East (ROSE) region dominate UK employ-
ment in the creative industries, with 58 per cent of all creative jobs representing
7.9 per cent of London jobs and 4.2 per cent of all jobs in the ROSE (Table 2).
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Workforce jobs
(000)
% of workforce that
is ‘creative’
London 360 7.9
ROSE 293 4.2
Rest of UK 485 2.5
UK 1,138 3.7
Table 2: Workforce and creative jobs, 2005 (DCMS-DET defined industries).
Source: GLA Economics, 2007.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 106
There is further concentration of the creative industries within central London
(Figure 4), a pattern reinforced for each of the production chain of the
domains advocated by the DCMS in their DCMS Evidence Tootkit (DET).
London’s Mature creative clusters overlap and are highly centralized (Figure 5).
Nevertheless, one of the key programmes under the Creative London
Action Plan (2006) – creative hubs – is based on cluster development out-
side this central London core. This new programme has been developed to
use creativity as a catalyst for entrepreneurial development in areas of
enterprise deprivation and where there is thought to be some potential for
creative activity based on the location of a higher education arts institution,
subsidized arts venue or active local community cultural programme. Ten
hubs have been designated (Figure 6), all with not-for-profit organizations
of varying sizes and with a remit to support the creative industries. In each
area, a lead organization has been appointed to communicate with local
agencies and develop a long-term plan. Since 2003, £56 million in funding
has been approved in hub-based areas, more than 50 per cent of which has
been raised from non-creative industry investment programmes, notably
from property and regeneration budgets, and sector and skill investment
programmes (Creative London 2006). This public sector-led creative clus-
ter strategy is working with mostly Aspirational or Dependent clusters and
indeed some which are pre-Dependent (Barking and Dagenham, Outer East
London). Here, the hub strategy is to develop the networks and infrastruc-
tures that might facilitate creative activity of any kind.
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Strategies for creative industries
Figure 4: Creative employment in London.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 107
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Figure 6: Creative hubs in London.
Figure 5: London’s creative industry domains.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 108
This creative hub programme is being implemented as London’s cre-
ative employment appears to be in flux. By plotting employment trends for
London, ROSE and the Rest of the United Kingdom, research by GLA
Economics has identified a significant and potentially disconcerting recent
downturn for creative employment in London (GLA 2007). For ten years,
between 1991 and 2001, creative employment rose steeply for all three geo-
graphical areas. This pattern – and what it implied for the strength of this
sector – justified the plethora of advocacy documents and strategies found
by our survey not only for London but for many other cities and regions
across the globe. However, creative employment in London fell sharply after
2001, with the beginnings of a recovery seemingly taking place only in 2005.
Furthermore, this downturn was steeper in creative employment than for
London’s employment as a whole (Figure 7).
London’s creative employment downturn goes against the trends for
both the United Kingdom and ROSE. Upward growth continued in the
Rest of the UK and creative employment in ROSE did not experience the
same dramatic slump, as it appeared to recover quickly after a small dip in
2002. Initial explanations for these trends are emerging: the growth out-
side London may in large part be due to the expansion of those who are
‘creatively occupied outside the creative industries’ often in the public sec-
tor, which, as a whole, has been growing. There may also be a dispersal of
the creative industries from London into ROSE. The particular volatility (or
vulnerability) of London’s creative employment has been linked to recent
trends within the private sector. It is estimated that 47 per cent of all cre-
ative output is to supply ‘intermediate demand from business’ (GLA
2007). When there is a squeeze on the private-sector economy, creative
industries in London suffer disproportionately, suggesting that many of
the services and products offered by the creative industries are additional to
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Strategies for creative industries
Figure 7: Creative employment trends for London, ROSE, Outside the South East and Great Britain.
CIJ 1.2_02_art_JoFoord 11/26/08 1:58 PM Page 109
core business activities and can be dispensed with when markets are con-
tracting. Data from 2005 indicate a levelling out of London’s creative
employment decline, with some sectors again growing (those in the audio-
visual, and books and press domains), but others not recovering so well
(those in the visual arts and performance domains) (GLA 2007).
London’s assured status as a creative city is beginning to look some-
what different as market pressures expose the systemic weaknesses within
the sector. Similar volatility in creative industries employment is evident in
other cities such as Berlin and Amsterdam following the dot.com fall out
from 2001. In the United States of America, jobless growth has been identi-
fied, where the number of creative firms and productivity have increased
but employment has fallen (Americans for the Arts 2005).
Other factors affecting the rate of growth of the creative economy in
London are common to many world cities, notably high property and start-
up costs. These are exacerbated by the gentrification (regeneration) of a
number of London’s inner city neighbourhoods, the dominant residential
market, declining suitable light industrial and affordable workspace premises,
coupled with the failure of live-work quotas. The impact of the Olympics
development is too early to assess, although short-term workspace losses
are already evident (Evans 2007).
More generally, London’s socio-economic, cultural and spatial divide is
also widening. London is high on Florida’s ‘inequality index’ (Florida 2005)
and creative industries employment does not reflect the city’s cultural
diversity – only 15 per cent of creative employees are from black and minority
ethnic communities (GLA 2007). Indications of creative employment losses
suggest dependency on fragile micro enterprises and a movement to outer
London and out of London. Policy initiatives and interventions (including
incubator and workspace initiatives, creative clusters and hubs, skills training
and business support) are too recent for their impacts to be fully assessed.
London’s links with international and UK regional city networks are –
despite London’s ‘world city’ status – less established than other European
and UK regional cities. Steps being taken to internationalize London’s cre-
ative industries profile and policy networks include international showcasing
(for film, music and fashion) and the establishment of London’s economic
development and inward investment offices and representatives in China.
The strong presence of higher education art and design research and prac-
tice in London is also not reflected in measures of innovation and R&D perfor-
mance. The United Kingdom scores low when compared with the United State
of America and other European countries (the United Kingdom is eighth in
Europe). Furthermore, productivity gains have not improved in line with the
United Kingdom’s competitors and there is little correlation between London’s
creative clusters and increased productivity. Finally, London, in common with
Barcelona, is at risk of generating an over-supply of art and design graduates
relative to employment opportunities. This, coupled with a general shortage of
investment and venture capital for new creative entrepreneurs, makes London
a difficult environment for the creative industries.
Conclusion
The survey of creative strategies and the city case studies have exposed
many of the contradictions embedded within creativity-led policy discourse.
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Creative industries are linked to anticipated growth and innovation and
have often been used to lever funds for more general structural or sector-
wide investment. In some cases this has deflected attention and invest-
ment away from cultural development and arts programmes or dedicated
creative industries strategies. The lack of comparability in data analysis
used to support creative strategies, their inconsistent definitions and appli-
cations of creative industries classifications, makes it difficult to truly
assess the relative contribution creative industries make to city, regional
and national economies. However, the survey did find a powerful drive
towards defining creativity and the creative industries in terms of IP,
although there was resistance to this where the social meaning of culture
had been specifically valued.
Support for ‘creative clusters’ that bring together public and private
institutions with enterprise growth and social (regeneration and inclu-
sion) goals proved to be increasingly popular at the city level. However,
the replication of creative clusters (media cities/digital hubs/creative
hubs/fashion quarters/cultural quarters) raises questions about an over-
supply of similarly targeted enterprises (within individual cities such as
London as well as between cities at the national and international scales)
and possibly unrealistic expectations of assuming an ever-expanding cre-
ative economy. As London’s creative employment dipped in the wake of a
private-sector downturn, it may be time to reassess the rush to become a
‘creative place’.
It is therefore likely that future creative strategies will require a more
sophisticated and realistic consideration of the role of the creative indus-
tries within the knowledge economy, including a deeper understanding of
the innovation and production linkages between the creative industries and
other sectors of the (not-so-new) knowledge economy. They would also
benefit from a greater consideration of the different outcomes that can be
anticipated from creative enterprise and cultural development programmes.
Finally, if the objective is to facilitate creative places, then more attention
needs to be paid to the particularities of locality. Creativity may be found
everywhere, but perhaps not all localities can become ‘creative places’ with
the competitive advantages that this implies.
Acknowledgements
Graeme Evans led the Cities Institute contribution to the Creative Spaces Project on
which this paper is based. Phyllida Shaw and Antje Witting provided invaluable
research support. Their contributions are gratefully acknowledged as are the com-
ments made by Graeme Harper on an earlier version of this paper.
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Suggested citation
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Contributor details
Jo Foord is a Principal Research Fellow at the Cities Institute, London Metropolitan
University, where she undertakes research on urban and regeneration issues.
Contact: Cities Institute, London Metropolitan University, Ladbroke House, 62-66
Highbury Grove, London, N5 2AD.
E-mail: [email protected]
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