Cities and the Cultural Economy

The cultural economy forms a leading trajectory of urban development, and has emerged as a key facet of globalizing cities. Cultural industries include new media, digital arts, music and film, and the design industries and professions, as well as allied consumption and spectacle in the city. The cultural economy now represents the third-largest sector in metropolitan cities of the West (for example London, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, and Melbourne), but is also influential in the development of East Asian cities (Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore), as well as the mega-cities of the Global South (e.g. Mumbai, Capetown, and Sao Paulo).

Cities and the New Cultural Economy addresses the conflicting claims of scholars concerning the growth performance and socioeconomic consequences of the creative economy and class, exemplified by the work of Richard Florida, Edward Glaeser, Charles Landry, Allen Scott, Jamie Peck and Stefan Kratke, among others. This debate clearly matters, as policies for the cultural economy are increasingly prominent within planning, development and place-marketing programs, requiring large resource commitments, but producing – on the evidence – highly uneven results. Accordingly the volume includes a critical review of how the new cultural economy is reshaping urban labour, housing and property markets, contributing to gentrification and to ‘precarious employment’ formation, as well as to broadly favorable outcomes, such as community regeneration and urban vitality.

Cities and the New Cultural Economy acknowledges the important growth dynamics and sustainability of key creative industries, including the resiliency of the cultural market during the recent deep recession, while underscoring more problematic features. The volume is designed as a compelling and insightful text for upper-year undergraduates and Masters-level courses in social sciences, humanities, and professional planning and policy programs, and features a lively writing style, numerous text/graphic boxes demonstrating crucial issues drawn from instructive cities and sites, and a generous number of photo plates.

Tom Hutton is Professor in the Centre for Human Settlements and a Faculty Associate of Green College, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He has published extensively on the cultural economy and creative industries and labour among both advanced and transitional cities, including The New Economy of the Inner City(Routledge 2008 and 2010).