Abstract
The present chapter reviews the recent studies of the ABC department surrounding the role of cultural heritage and creativity on local economic development. The research line covers the interpretation of culture as a territorial asset, its multifaceted dimensions, and impact on local development. An innovative definition of cultural capital was provided, jointly with empirical evidence on the relationship between cultural heritage and intangible cultural elements. The most interesting finding shows that culture, embedded within cultural heritage, plays a role in promoting prosperity only when tangible heritage is matched with intangible cultural assets. Among such intangible assets, creativity is particularly analyzed in terms of its link with the cultural heritage of places and their economic development. The assumption, both conceptually and empirically investigated, is that culture promotes creativity through emotional, esthetic, and inspirational mechanisms, driving individuals’ ability to doubt, innovate, and think critically. In other words, creativity is an important mediator of the relationship between culture and socioeconomic development. Empirical evidence from Italian regions strongly supports this hypothesis. Future research directions are presented in the concluding section.
Highlights
We developed the impression that this position was underestimating the role of cultural heritage on local development, convinced that cultural heritage is able to generate a positive effect on local socioeconomic conditions in the presence of other cultural characteristics, like the shared values of the community
Particular attention has been devoted by the research group to a specific intangible element through which the role that could be played in socioeconomic development by cultural heritage could take place: creativity
The first one is to investigate in greater depth the idea of intangible elements mediating the link between cultural heritage and local development, by focusing on another very important element, i.e., sense of belonging in local communities (Perucca 2019)
Summary
The economic role of culture nowadays is well recognized. From this perspective, culture does not just hold an esthetic and recreational value, as was the general opinion for a long time, and an economic value, which makes culture a territorial asset of places. Due to the difficulty in measuring culture and its different dimensions, such an approach is relatively rare in the literature, which is mostly focused on case studies analyzing single regions or cities Stemming from these considerations, the research program of the research group concentrated on: 1. Creativity is a rather vague concept, treated in the literature in several different ways, often without a conceptual framework on which a research hypothesis can be founded The goals of this part of the project are to conceptualize creativity and its connection with cultural heritage and to empirically test a set of assumptions on the mechanisms through which creativity can reinforce the effect of cultural heritage on local development. The following sections review the two steps of the research program, pointing out the results achieved
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