Urban transformation, socio-economic regeneration and participation: two cases of creative urban regeneration

Abstract

The creative city is a city able to generate economies of innovation, culture, research and artistic production, and strengthen its own identity capital. Looking at the experiences of creative cities, it may be observed that they revolve around the design, promotion and activation of urban areas established due to their particular local characteristics. Those areas become creative clusters as a result of economic and structural innovation, which is related to the execution of innovative projects achieved with the help of local development strategies based on the economy of excellence and territorial qualities. The most mature experiences of creative cities show us two types of creative clusters: cultural, which are created around activities such as fine arts, music, cinema, architecture and design, and whose initiation is encouraged and planned by local administration; and events, whose development stems from the organisation of major events or different kinds of recreational and cultural manifestations. Starting from such premises, this paper aims to explore the concept of creative cities and the main factors conditioning creativity in cities. These topics are addressed most directly in the literature review, with two case studies deepening understanding of the pragmatic strategies and processes underlying redevelopments within creative city framework. The two examples of creative urban projects concern Arabianranta in Helsinki, for the events cluster framework and HafenCity in Hamburg, for the cultural cluster framework. These cases inform a more sustainable version of creative city that is anchored in local history and identity, local economic nourishment and participation in redevelopment process and emphasise this endeavour as a process, thus incorporating risk and uncertainty.