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The Value of Culture and the Creative Industries in Local Development -…
The Value of Culture and the Creative
Industries in Local Development
Culture is the fundamental bond of communities and the foundation of what makes us human.
The Mexico City Declaration by the United Cities and Local Government Organisation had called for the inclusion of culture as the fourth pillar in the global sustainable development model.
because it was generally felt that the three dimensions of economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental balance alone could not reflect the complexity of contemporary society.
Increasing evidence points to the positive effects of culture in a range of policies, such as urban regeneration, citizens’ wellbeing, and health, equality, social cohesion, education, and youth.
In recent times and thanks in part to technology, culture can deliver positive effects beyond passive transmission, increasingly giving way to more active involvement
and participation, where the boundaries between creation, distribution, and reception are blurred.
This co-creative turn intensifies the potential of culture to mobilize citizens and stimulate civic debate. Culture has the capacity to open minds by showing alternative perspectives and thus ultimately strengthening the capacity of
individuals to participate in society as democratic citizens.
Cultural awareness emerges as a core competence necessary for improving democracy, as well as fostering active citizenship and intercultural dialogue.
The power of cultural participation to promote inclusion and integration of isolated and excluded groups, as well as supporting cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue. Participation in cultural activities is seen as a tool for promoting equality, empowering individuals and communities to communicate and develop their potential.
Cultural cooperation with neighboring countries can also be a tool for stimulating intercultural understanding, which is especially important when tackling issues of migration, security, and radicalization.
Cultural heritage is a major contributor to the unique image and identity of cities and regions. As such it can be mobilized in making urban tourism experiences more authentic and more in tune with local cultural expressions.
The creative economy's contribution to the GDP
of the Union is 4.2%, employing 7 million people (nearly 2.5 times more Europeans than the automotive industry). Such figures may suggest that the presence and development of
cultural and creative industries constitute a main economic driver for a city and a region, and because of their high content of creativity, CCIs contribute significantly to spin-offs
such as example, youth employment.
CCIs are a by-product of constant crossovers between the commercial and noncommercial sectors.
Culture and creativity as key ingredients of prospering urban economies and, by extension, the ability to attract, retain and support creative people and a strong creative economy are seen as markers of successful cities and countries.
Innovation is understood as a system capable of going beyond traditional forms of technology and R&D into a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral activity. In part, this is also because today’s economy is characterized by a “customization” of products and services, the success of which relies greatly on the unique aesthetic, symbolic and socio-cultural elements of such products.
Unprecedented access to web-based production technology capable of allowing professional treatment of the text, still and moving images, sound, and multimedia at very cheap prices are one of the key components of this scenario. In addition, the ease of communication coupled with the social fragmentation of post-industrial society into social groups, lifestyle communities, networks of affiliations — all seeking identity and belonging — create a climate in which not only new tastes but also new values can arise.
Visiting museums or galleries, are changing as cultural institutions themselves are increasingly becoming more interactive in order to enable participative forms of co-creation by users. They are no longer just citadels of knowledge but real tools for the empowerment of communities.
the more opportunities people have to participate in the cultural activity the higher the socio-cognitive effects in terms of attitudes toward innovation and change become relevant and visible.
Arts have been used as a tool to enforce an express power in social relations throughout history and argue that the current wave of instrumentalization may lead policymakers to make claims of impacts yet unproven.
Approaching culture as an ecology offers a richer and more complete understanding of the topic because it concentrates on showing how ideas transfer, monetary value flows, and product and content move to and from, and in-between, the funded, self-made and commercial subsectors.
Creativity (and the skills related to creative thinking) are instead the forces of change, cutting across sectors, solving problems, and generating new ideas.
Creative industries as a generator of local innovation processes
partly through the innovative activities in which they engage, but also, indirectly through generating creative spill-overs that benefit the wider economies of the places where they are located.
A new economic phenomenon has emerged characterized by a parallel application, within single industries, of ICT and other creative skills together. This means that any attempt to separate ICT from other creative work or to reduce the creative industries either to an offshoot of content production or to a branch of the software industry will be a mistake.
All steps in the value chains of the cultural and creative sectors
(from creation to consumption) have been influenced by new digital solutions, generating new opportunities for innovative practices and increased interaction with audiences (which become actors and producers).
The boundaries between creative value chains and other value chains are becoming more blurred.
Digitization has a strong multi-dimensional impact on the structure and market dynamics across all nine creative value chains in terms of, for example, creating new tools to automate or organize existing activities in a more effective manner; exploring new (cross-sectoral) market opportunities; establishing completely new activities, including completely new business models whereby digitization allows creators to go beyond traditional intermediaries and even challenge traditional business rules and models.
. In all cases, the presence of creative firms and activities generates a vibrant urban climate that attracts skilled workers and encourages collaborations.
The Toolkit shows that mapping is an important step for
collecting and presenting information on the range and scope of the creative industries (or a particular part of them) so that targeted interventions can be undertaken.
Mapping can provide information that allows national, regional, or local agents to identify key aspects of the local creative sectors’ dynamics. It can help to design solutions to tackle gaps, and/or
respond to the needs revealed through the analysis. It can give greater visibility to the local creative ecology and can provide the necessary evidence to improve decision-making in the design of bespoke policies to strengthen such ecology.
It can also be instrumental in identifying which local institutions or organizations can take the lead and give those stakeholders within the creative sector and the creative community renewed
confidence about the role they can play in local development.
