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Creative Hubs are mostly both bottom-up initiatives by artists and other creatives, and the object of policy makers, who see in the creative hubs an opportunity for urban regeneration and an impulse to the local economy. The tension between these two forces in the largest cities in the Netherlands has been analysed in this article. How does local policy deal with the norms, values, and rules at hub sites? In order to answer this question, we used the Reconstructed Policy Theory (RPT) to attribute the goals described in policy documents to underlying values. We conclude that after more than two decades, Creative Hub Policy still is in a nascent state, in the sense that local governments still struggle to define what a creative hub exactly is. Our analysis also shows that Hub Policy, while creating space for artists, is based on other than artistic values: mainly economic and social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delineates a critical history of the economic imaginary of the creative economy. Applying the Cultural Political Economy analytical framework, the article looks at the turning points during the twentieth and twenty-first century in which different but connected discourses over creativity in the economic sphere emerged. Multiple contributions derive from the results. First, the research adds analytical depth to the existing literature, recovering the thought of Patten and the economic and political debate about creativity during the fifties and the sixties. This operation allows the integration of these discourses and more recent ones about the creative city, creative industries, and creative class under a common framework. Overall, a clear pattern emerges, consisting of two phases: a first phase of germination, in which academic and intellectual circles conceptualise the discourses, and a second phase of dissemination, in which political figures appropriate and spread those discourses. Lastly, we argue that the discourses composing the creative economy imaginary, taken together, can be interpreted as the attempt of Western economies to trigger a new successful cycle of economic accumulation, able to replace the Fordist one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a core element in Richard Florida's popular theory on growth to be able to attract the creative class to a geographical area. But Florida is not very specific on which kind of amenities are important for attracting and keeping the creative class. The purpose of this paper is to analyse which kind of cultural activities the creative class is actually using. Which kind of cultural activities does the creative class use more intensively than other groups in society? This paper presents new empirical results on preferences for leisure and culture. Richard Florida's theory can be, and has been, criticised - especially on the issue of causality. The analyses presented in this paper show that being part of the creative class has an independent and significant role in explaining preferences for leisure and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Richard Florida has proven extremely influential in cultural policy circles in recent years. His arguments concerning 'the rise of the creative class' and the concentration of 'technology, talent and tolerance' in successful cities are grounded in certain theoretical assumptions and supported by specific kinds of evidence that should be submitted to critical interrogation in order to test their robustness. This paper addresses the following questions: What are the theoretical assumptions underpinning Florida's arguments? Is the evidence upon which these arguments are substantiated sound? What are the implications of Florida's thesis for cultural policy? A critical reading of Florida's key writings is presented. The paper also comments on the impact of Florida's work around the world and focuses upon a particularly significant policy document in Britain, the Work Foundation's Staying Ahead - The Economic Performance of the UK's Creative Industries. It is necessary to trace the intellectual framework of 'post-industrial' thinking about contemporary capitalism, the incorporation of bohemianism into business and aspirations for urban regeneration and competitive advantage in a global economy with local and regional peculiarities in order to evaluate the 'Florida thing'. The paper reflects upon the synthesis of cultural policy with economic policy and argues that this is not the best way forward for the politics of art and culture in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]