‘A Special Kind of City Knowledge’: Innovative Clusters, Tacit Knowledge and the ‘Creative City’

Abstract

That the cultural industries are highly networked and operate in clusters is now well established. The notion of cluster is linked to the idea of place-based advantage, with cultural industries gaining competitive advantage from mobilising the resources of places to compete in global markets. ‘Place’ in the cultural industries is frequently taken to be the city, where city is seen as the key resource for cultural industry clusters and a primary point of intervention for cultural industry policy in creative city policy-making. In this article, I want to look at some of the implications of these moves for both academic research and policy discussion. The reasons for this emphasis on policy relates to some large questions of urban governance and cultural politics surrounding the proactive government of clusters which are raised by recent work on the cultural industries, notably by Alan Scott.