Becoming a Creative City: The Entrepreneurial Mayor, Network Politics and the Promise of an Urban Renaissance

Davide Ponzini and Ugo Rossi
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Davide Ponzini: Department of Architecture and Planning, Politecnico di Milano, Via Bonardi 3, Milano, MI, 20133, Italy, davide.ponzini@polimi.it
Ugo Rossi: Department of Economic and Commercial Sciences, Economic Geography Discipline, University of Cagliari, Via Sant'lgnazio da Laconi 17, 09123, Cagliari, Italy, urossi@unica.it

Urban Studies, 2010, vol. 47, issue 5, 1037-1057

Abstract: This paper critically explores the ‘politics of becoming’ in a ‘wannabe’ creative city in the United States. It shows how, in Baltimore’s policy sphere, Richard Florida’s theory has served as an ‘intellectual technology’ aiming at the invention of a new macro-actor (the creative class), while related urban regeneration outcomes and prospects appear to be more problematic. In particular, at the city-wide level, the creative class policy has favoured the interests of local politicians and their closer institutional partners; while, in the described context of a socially deprived neighbourhood, the embraced culture-led policy, albeit successful in redesigning a more attractive urban realm and thus in attaining its stated goals, has proved to be concerned more with real estate revitalisation than with issues of social inclusion and life-chance provision. It is concluded that the prevailing institutional imperative of networking and collaboration, as observed in Baltimore’s creative class initiative, overemphasises the importance of the politics of association in contemporary urban regeneration processes, while neglecting the relevance of classic goals of socio-spatial justice.

Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:47:y:2010:i:5:p:1037-1057

DOI: 10.1177/0042098009353073

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