Territorial Capital and Development Potentials of a Territory.

Since the beginning of the nineties of the 20th century, in developed countries much bigger significance has been given to the development incentives that come into certain areas from the field of culture, and recently particular attention is being paid to the creative sector. In this paper we have attempted to point out to the modern meaning of the concept of territorial capital. We did that with the aim to highlight the role of this concept in the realization of economic policies, primarily the regional policy or the policy of territorial adjustment. Then we focused on the knowledge, culture and creativity as important elements of the so-called soft territorial capital. We illuminate the connection between knowledge, culture and creativity, on the one hand, and the territory, on the other, from the perspective of both contemporary and traditional development paradigms. The interaction between the spaces where the cultural and creative work and activities that are based on them, meet the organizations from the domain of culture, creative sectors and talents, was mainly neglected in previous developmental patterns of the society. Therefore, in the last part of the paper we dealt with the analysis of these elements as factors of development, either of a country as a whole, or its individual parts on all the levels - regions, districts, cities, local communities. The new pattern of the territorial policy allows better focusing on basic priorities, with the full consent of the numerous entities involved in the process of designing objectives, the set of ex ante established conditions, the necessary institutional framework and parameters for assessing the fulfillment of the goals. Besides, involvement of local stakeholders in the process of initiatives, determining goals and providing international expertise at the local level, should reduce the risk of obstruction of local interest groups or the local governments, for achieving expected effects of integrated development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]