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International audience; “Cultural/Creative Quarters/Clusters/Districts” (CCC) have become very popular local development strategies across the World in the last 30 years. This popularity has been reflected within the academic literature in Urban Planning, Geography, Economics and Cultural Studies. However, each discipline and/or authors define these concepts in their own way or borrow from one another without necessarily clearly delimiting or explaining their approaches. As such, the CCC academic field of research is quite fuzzy. In order to address this issue, this paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of the peer-reviewed academic literature included in the Scopus database using the concepts of creative or cultural clusters, districts or quarters (the most popular combination of terms found in the literature). In doing so, the paper addresses the following questions: What are cultural/creative district, cluster and quarter? When did these concepts appear? Are these concepts overlapping? Who has been writing about these? In which disciplines and in which countries? What has been the evolution in terms of conceptual understanding? What are the themes and dimensions associated with these concepts? How have they been studied and researched (methodologies)? What issues and research gap are present within this literature? How can we move the research forward?

International audience

International audience

This chapter sets up the context and objectives of the book. First, a review of the various definitions used for the cultural and creative industries at the European level is provided highlighting some of the challenges and definitional issues encountered over the last 20 years. Second, some data on the importance of the cultural and creative industries in Europe are presented as well as some European national specificities. The chapter then discusses some of the remaining gaps in understanding that exist with regard to the sectoral and spatial dynamics of the creative industries in Western and Central and Eastern Europe in light of the various policies and agendas pushed forwards by the European Commission. Finally, we conclude by detailing the objectives of the book and the various chapters it includes.

In the last 10 years, there has been a shift from a focus on the direct economic contribution of the creative industries to their innovation capacities and indirect economic contribution. Two main strands of literature have tried to capture this. The first strand looks at innovation characteristics and processes in the arts and the creative industries (sectoral perspective). The second strand concentrates on the way these industries cluster and directly contribute to local and regional economies (spatial perspective). However, there is little work focusing on the innovation outputs of creative industries and on how clustering really impacts their innovation performance and dynamic at the local and regional levels. This chapter tries to fill this gap by combining both sectoral and spatial perspectives. By using original data, the chapter discusses the Soho film cluster in London in order to examine the innovation dynamic of the film industry in a particular place. Innovations in the creative industries often differ from those in manufacturing or other sectors. As such, the particular nature of innovation in film industry is presented. The film industry can be highly innovative, both producing and adapting innovations. Our analysis of the Soho film cluster documents the impact of clustering on the innovation performance of firms in the sector and demonstrates the impact of geographical proximity on innovation performance through a high degree of embeddedness of the film industry in local and regional labour markets and in favouring local and international innovation linkages.

In the past fifteen years there has been an increasing focus on the importance of creativity in fostering economic development with the emergence of concepts such as creative industries, creative e...

Andres L. and Chapain C. The integration of cultural and creative industries into local and regional development strategies in Birmingham and Marseille: towards an inclusive and collaborative governance?, Regional Studies. This paper explores the nature of the integration mechanisms of cultural and creative industries (CCI) into local and regional strategies and policies in Birmingham (UK) and Marseille (France) over the last thirty years. Using the typology developed by Smith and Warfield in 2008 with regard to CCI local policies and drawing on the collaborative governance model of Ansell and Gash in 2007, the paper compares the private CCI actors involved in local policies based on culture-centric versus econo-centric approaches. It demonstrates that the culture-centric approach is more exclusive than the econo-centric approach, and tends to lead to restrictive governance arrangements. Andres L. and Chapain C. 伯明翰和马赛地区文化与创意产业与地方及区域发展战略的相互整合：迈向包容与协作性的管治？区域研究。本文探讨了过去三十多年在伯明翰（英国）和马赛（法国）地区文化创意产业（CCI）与地方及区域战...

The shift towards neo-liberal policy-making as orthodoxy has been well documented within the field of regional development and beyond (Brenner, Peck, & Theodore, 2012; Boland, 2014; Haughton, Allme...

This paper examines how the loss of 6300 jobs from the closure of MG Rover (MGR) in the city of Birmingham (UK) in April 2005 affected the employment trajectories of ex-workers, in the context of wider structural change and efforts at urban renewal. The paper presents an analysis of a longitudinal survey of 300 ex-MGR workers, and examines to what extent the state of local labour markets and workers’ geographical mobility—as well as the effectiveness of the immediate policy response and longer-term local economic strategies—may have helped to balance the impacts of personal attributes associated with workers’ employability and their reabsorption into the labour markets. It is found that the relative buoyancy of the local economy, the success of longer-run efforts at diversification and a strong policy response and retraining initiative helped many disadvantaged workers to find new jobs in the medium term. However, the paper also highlights the unequal employment outcomes and trajectories that many lesser-skilled workers faced. It explores the policy issues arising from such closures and their aftermath, such as the need to co-ordinate responses, to retain institutional capacity, to offer high-quality training and education resources to workers and, where possible, to slow down such closure processes to enable skills to be retained and reused within the local economy.

This special issue is concerned with developing a better understanding of the dynamics that affect the relationship between creative industries and their geographical context. A wide literature has attempted to explain the general characteristics of ‘creative places’; nevertheless, there is still little knowledge of the micro-interactions that creative practitioners and businesses establish within specific local contexts. The papers included in this special issue aim to address this question from a range of perspectives; earlier versions were presented at the seminar series organized by the Regional Studies Association Research Network on ‘Creative Industries and the Regions’ (www.creative-regions.org.uk).

What makes a ‘Creative City’? The literature suggests that there are often conflicting accounts as to what the reality of the cultural and creative production is in cities, what their images are in terms of their cultural consumption and how they stimulate the cultural and creative capital of their citizens. This paper, inspired by Hall (2004), highlights how so far our understanding of the ‘Creative City’ has been fragmented and problematic in England by looking at data and measures of both creative production and consumption in two English cities – Birmingham and Newcastle-Gateshead. The authors call for a more holistic approach which takes into account not only the presence of creative industries and creative workers but also the level of cultural consumption and participation occurring in cities and the relationship between the two.

The current debate on drivers and processes of creative industries in cities and regions oscillates between two approaches: one that focuses on individuals' creative talent drawing on Florida's work, and one that looks at firms and systems of firms, i.e., creative clusters. In this introductory note, we critically review the main contributions on both sides, argue that that there a need to reconcile them especially in order to shape the current policy discourse.

Much of the recent literature concerned with the impacts of factory closure refers to closures occurring in the 1980s and 1990s and affecting heavy industry – coal, steel and shipbuilding. It also tends to focus on employment and labour market impacts assessed through the subsequent experience of workers made redundant following closures. It also tends to assume that these impacts are localized. Because of this much of the discussion of policy implications relates to the workers made redundant and to a very local economy. This paper refers to the closure of the MG Rover factory in Longbridge, Birmingham, UK. This closure was regarded as presenting a crisis for government and the local community. The paper responds to arguments in the research literature and explores the spatial and economic impact of the MG Rover closure in more detail. It complements other research which has focused on the experience of those made redundant in 2005 by referring to the loss of employment over a longer time period and iden...

Summary: Images of cities play an ever-increasing role in urban competitiveness. The image of a place is an essential element in the attraction of new economic activities. If the image is good, policy-makers of cities and city-regions may decide to support and maintain, perhaps even strengthen, that image by continuous branding campaigns, even though they are not absolutely required in the short run. However, when the image is not optimal, robust branding campaigns seem to be indispensable. The aim of this chapter is to identify and evaluate the main aspects that contribute to a successful city branding exercise - taking into consideration the difficulties associated with measuring the 'success' of this type of strategy - as well as the challenges that this type of exercise may encounter.

Chapain C. and Comunian R. Enabling and inhibiting the creative economy: the role of the local and regional dimensions in England, Regional Studies. Integrating findings from two separate research projects in Birmingham and Newcastle–Gateshead in England, this paper explores factors that enable or inhibit the development of creative and cultural industries in English regions outside London. The findings question current creative and cultural industries policies and their understanding of the local and regional dimensions as being limited to the idea of geographical clusters. Instead, the paper calls for a wider approach that also takes into account the importance of the regional infrastructure and the ‘knowledge pool’ necessary to the development of creative and cultural industries, but also personal and operational connections of the creative and cultural industries within and outside their region. Chapain C. et Comunian R. Promouvoir ou inhiber l'economie creative: le role de la dynamique locale et regi...

(2010). REPORT OF THE 3RD SEMINAR OF THE RSA RESEARCH NETWORK ON CREATIVE INDUSTRIES AND THE REGIONS. Regions Magazine: Vol. 277, No. 1, pp. 33-34.

Pour les grandes villes nord-américaines, de nombreuses études confirment le déplacement des activités économiques vers la banlieue. Devons-nous pour autant sonner le glas des centres-villes et de la centralité? Après avoir effectué une revue des travaux sur le sujet, nous analysons 32 régions métropolitaines pour la période 1980-1995, en postulant que la force du centre-ville se révélera dans les rapports de prix centre/banlieue pour les espaces à bureau. Nous n'observons pas de tendance généralisée de déclin des centres villes. Les prix demeurent, en règle générale, plus élevés au centre, même s'il existe des pôles secondaires forts. Nous observons des différences importantes d'une ville et d'une région à l'autre, notamment entre villes canadiennes et américaines., The movement of economic activity to the suburbs is well documented for North American cities. However, does this necessarily mean the death of downtowns and of centrality? After reviewing relevant literature, we carry out an analysis for 32 metropolitan areas for the period 1980-1995, based on the postulate that the ratio (downtown/suburbs) of prices for comparable office space is a good indicator of centrality. We do not observe a generalized tendency towards downtown decline. Prices in downtown generally remain higher, even where important secondary centers are present. We observe major differences between cities and regions, specifically between Canadian and U.S. cities.