A Conceptual Regulatory Framework For The Design & Evaluation of Complex, Participative Cultural Planning Strategies

bs_bs_banner
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01159.x
A Conceptual Regulatory Framework for

the Design and Evaluation of Complex,
Participative Cultural Planning Strategies
PIER LUIGI SACCO and ALESSANDRO CROCIATA
Abstract
The current hype about culture-led local development models is causing an increasing
interest in cultural policies in the broader context of urban policy. This is not necessarily
a transitory situation bound to fade once the hype is over. Under certain conditions, there
is room to believe that culture may indeed become a main development driver of urban
systems. For this to happen, however, it is necessary to abandon simple mono-causal
developmental schemes (such as the ‘creative class’model) and look for more articulated
approaches. This calls in turn for a complex systems-based conceptual framework that
is at the same time rich enough to capture the complexity of the interdependences among
policy and state variables, and manageable enough to be of practical use, not only for
policy design professionals but also for local stakeholders who want to take part
in collective decision-making processes. Inclusiveness and collective decision making
are almost unavoidable in the case of cultural planning strategies, as the social
sustainability of culture-based value creation processes crucially depends on boosting
the level of access to cultural opportunities by local residents. In this article we present
an approach that may be a tentative first step in this direction.
Introduction
We seem to be in the middle of a long-lasting hype about culture and creativity as
possible key drivers of urban development processes. Scholarly discussion is by now so
lively and articulated that a lengthy bibliographical essay would barely suffice to cover
it thoroughly. In spite of this, there seems to be so far no conclusive theoretical and
empirical evidence, whether on the positive or the negative side, and the dispute still
looks very open. Among the various issues to be discussed, one that is gaining increasing
attention is whether, in order to become a key developmental driver, cultural and creative
processes need any form of system-wide regulation and, if so, of what kind. One might
argue that, as a rule, cultural imagination and creativity, almost by definition, merely
need to abide by their own serendipitous principles and may hardly be governed, let
alone planned. But this attitude seems to rely on a rather naïve and stereotypical notion
of what cultural imagination and creativity really are (see Sternberg and Lubart, 1991).
In fact, both culture and creativity are extremely multifaceted concepts (Bleakley, 2004;
Crociata, 2009) and the conditions for creative activities to sustain a proper urban
development model seem to be rather tight and demanding (Landry, 2008), especially in
We thank two IJURR referees who looked at an earlier draft for their comments and suggestions. The usual
disclaimer applies.
© 2012 Urban Research Publications Limited. Published by Blackwell Publishing. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA
2 Pier Luigi Sacco and Alessandro Crociata
terms of the required level of social organization and coordination (Woodman et al.,
1993), whereas an effective and innovative urban governance needs to rely on specific
forms of creativity that may, but need not, be complementary to the former (Healey,
2004).
The regulation of creativity is, therefore, far from being a boutade. Most of the
promise of the developmental potential of culture and creativity critically rests upon our
ability to conceptualize, design and implement the proper policy tools. But what kind
of policies, if any, and at what level? These are questions that hardly admit of
straightforward answers. The aim of this article is to develop a thorough approach to the
issue and to provide some tentative answers.
Escaping mono-causality or de-stereotyping urban

cultural and creative policies: some general remarks
on the regulation of complex systems
Reasoning in abstract terms about a proper approach to cultural policies in an urban
context amounts, in its bare essence, to reflecting about the general regulatory properties
of a particular complex system. The system may or may not rely upon devices of its own
that make it relatively stable, self-organizing and possibly environmentally sustainable
(Morin, 1990). Insofar as the system is not entirely able to achieve such goals by itself,
there is room for the introduction of further devices to do the job. Policy design thus boils
down to a problem of cybernetic design (Ashby, 1954; Wiener, 1954) — that is, of
engineering proper combinations of positive and negative feedback loops and other
dynamic components that together enable the system to react appropriately to the shocks
generated by itself and by the outside context in order to achieve certain goals.
The most straightforward way to regulate a complex system is to refer to a classical
structure → performance paradigm: the regulator acts on the structure through a
sequence of control feedback loops in order to drive the system’s performance toward
a given target zone (Kirk, 1970). One of the main lessons that can be learnt from
the literature on optimal control of complex systems, however, is that, however tight the
feedback loops and no matter how rational and well informed the regulator, reaching the
given target zone may be much harder than expected at times if the system’s dynamic
complexity is substantial enough (Vincent and Grantham, 1997). This task may become
especially hard in social complex systems subject to theory absorption (Dacey, 1976;
1979), where individual agents may learn about the system’s performance and may
modify their own rules of conduct accordingly (Lucas and Sargent, 1981), trying to
manipulate them to their best advantage (for a state-of-the-art formulation see Aumann
and Dreze, 2008). On the other hand, claiming that rational agents tend to exploit the
available information as best as they can, does not amount to making predicting
behaviour a viable task (Foster and Young, 2001) and may even lead to self-defeating
(and not only self-fulfilling) aggregate effects (Sent, 1998).
The problem of the control of the dynamics of complex systems thus naturally leads
to the development of alternative, less centralized approaches to control, and thus to the
design of decentralized control devices (Siljak, 1991), which constitute, in principle, a
brand new paradigm as far as regulatory models are concerned. But the point is not
simply that of stabilizing the behaviour of a system, or of making its trajectories more
predictable. The problem is also, and possibly mainly, that of setting up control strategies
that let the system express its unleashed potential in terms of the generation of more
information and value, properly defined. In other words, we have to reason in terms of
system synergetics — the generation of highly organized collective behaviours where all
components tend to cooperate in a highly effective, yet fully decentralized way (Haken,
2004). There is a wide scholarly interest in deploying synergetic-inspired approaches to
urban organizational problems at various systemic scales (see e.g. Rosser 1994; Tannier

© 2012 Urban Research Publications Limited
A strategic framework for cultural planning 3
and Frankhauser, 2001; Portugali, 2002; 2006) but at the same time it is pretty clear that,
at least for the moment, these approaches may be useful for the analysis and solution of
mind-opening toy problems, or of very specific and circumscribed issues, but cannot be
as yet a practical tool for use by actual planners in most realistic policy contexts.
This does not mean, however, that synergetic models and, more generally,
cybernetics-inspired approaches to urban system regulation are practically useless. Quite
the contrary; in fact they may act as very powerful methodological metaphors and
as broad conceptual frameworks to illustrate, discuss and analyse real problems of
regulation for urban systems whose complexity and articulation is much too great to be
usefully described in terms of closed-form mathematical dynamic models (Alfasi and
Portugali, 2007). For this to be done, however, it is necessary to develop a suitable
methodology and a corresponding toolbox that allows them to be addressed with
conceptual precision without replicating the methodologies and tools of formal
mathematical models. At the same time, it is necessary to develop a framework that
is historically grounded in a proper socioeconomic context, not to borrow one
mechanically from other disciplinary contexts addressing other kinds of issues and
responding to entirely different theoretical and practical necessities (Papaioannou et al.,
2009).
What is, then, in practice, the use of reasoning in metaphorical terms, and why in
particular choose the systems complexity metaphor as a reference? The main reason is
that, in this way, it is possible to avoid the pitfall of one-directional causal thinking,
whose main negative consequence is that of overlooking almost completely the
unforeseen and unintended side effects of regulatory tools. This shortcoming is
particularly evident in the case of the debate on, and practice of, policy strategies for
culture- and creativity-driven urban development. We now turn, therefore, to this specific
issue with a double intent: to illustrate the previous discussion with a specific example
and to set the scene for the construction of our policy framework.
Culture- and creativity-driven urban development as

an ideal test bed for a systemic regulatory approach
There are few policy issues able to command the enthusiasm and the involvement of
audiences like fostering culture and creativity. The reason is simple: culture and almost
everything related to it is a merit good, a commendable individual and social activity that,
once the distinction between highbrow and lowbrow cultural forms has been done away
with and declared to be overcome by cultural evolution itself (Martel, 2010), is able to
ensure anyone access to a menu of activities associated with a good time, entertainment,
emotional and logical stimulation (Shirky, 2010) and so on (for a critique of the ‘feel
good’ approach, see Pratt, 2009). Arguing that such a playful field of activity may also
become a powerful driver of economic and social wellbeing is something that will make
most people feel very happy. This, incidentally, makes it a very attractive card to play in
the political game for the capture of local electoral consensus.
It is no surprise, then, that theories that show a way to reap the socioeconomic benefits
of culture and creativity pay off very well on the international marketplace for policy
mantras — as was exemplified quite clearly by the exceptional success that greeted the
‘creative class’ thinking of Richard Florida (2002; 2005; 2008), the most well-known and
discussed instance of this sort of approach. In a nutshell, Florida claims to find a precise
causal link between cultural blossoming and local development, that is, the attraction of
the creative class (which, from the sociological point of view, is a concept with shaky
foundations; see e.g. Markusen, 2006). As a consequence of its taking over the local
economy and society, it brings about a number of direct and indirect developmental
effects that enhance the local economy’s competitiveness and boost its engine of
growth. Attractiveness to creatives, in turn, may be measured on the basis of a small,

easy-to-grasp set of indices, labelled after the by now famous 3Ts (Technology, Talent,
Tolerance). What makes Florida’s approach so seductive for the policymaker, therefore,
is its providing a ready-made blueprint for policy design, well grounded on
one-directional causal links that the general public find very palatable and seductive
(Peck, 2005).
The problem with this approach is not only that it lacks empirical corroboration in
independent tests (Hoyman and Faricy, 2009) — at least in the short run, these findings
are largely seen as academic disputes that do not influence policymakers too much,
especially if the latter find the underlying idea functional to their own policy goals.
The real issue is that, by focusing on the one-directional causal link, and suggesting that
good regulation basically means paving the way for that specific kind of development
engine — namely, tailoring the city to the creatives’ needs as defined by the theory (in
Florida’s evocative terminology, creatives look for ‘plug and play’ professional and social
environments) — the approach ends up largely overlooking far too many unintended
consequences of primary relevance. In the case of the creative class approach, these have
been made explicit and discussed at length: the gentrification of ‘culturally hip’ areas and
expulsion of the urban poor from the city, the instrumentalization of cultural and creative
activity and the undermining of its authenticity, the marginalization of large parts of the
local community from the developmental game and so on (Montgomery, 2005; Nathan,
2005; Peck, 2005; Markusen, 2006; Wilson and Keil, 2008; Atkinson and Easthope,
2009). Rather than easing the social contradictions and the economic dualisms that are
typical of the urban context, such a mono-directional regulatory approach based on a very
idiosyncratic notion of culture and creativity may even exacerbate them and put under
pressure local creative communities that are unwilling to twist their social and cultural
discourse to fit into an external script that is quite insensitive to the local context but
highly functional to specific local organized interests (Ponzini, 2009; Whyte, 2009).
A useful illustration of this effect may be found in Baltimore’s policy failure in applying
the Florida approach to a city affected by severe, preexisting forms of social and
economic distress (Ponzini and Rossi, 2010). The threat of an exacerbation of existing
dualisms may, moreover, easily carry over to the regional level under the form of a
creative metropolis vs noncreative small towns tension (Lewis and Donald, 2010). It
is no surprise, then, that such a straightforward causal scheme finds little support in the
data — which, of course, does not amount to saying that there is no value in attracting
talented people to a given city.
Another instance of simple mono-directional regulatory scheme is the one that
focuses on the creation of cultural landmarks — for instance, highly representative
buildings designed by world-renowned archistars — which work (again) as attractors of
global visibility, investments, tourist flows and so on. Here, the underlying causal scheme
is more traditional, and can be ultimately traced back to a sort of post-industrial
Keynesianism where the cultural attractor causes a big injection of effective demand in
the local system, with the corresponding multiplier effects and so on. But, again, it is by
now clear that, in this case too, the idea that a true long-term growth dynamics can be
originated in this way is illusory; rather, the big cultural attractor will have a positive
impact on the local economy if the latter is already highly productive and efficiently
organized (Plaza, 2008). Cultural attractors may have a direct impact on the social
construction of local meaning and identity, but this does not necessarily translate into
a full-fledged developmental model (Dembski and Salet, 2010; Molnar, 2010). The
cultural revitalization of a local economy needs to rely upon a highly coordinated
organizational model, that fully addresses the specificities of the systemic logic of the
creative sectors (DeFilippi et al., 2007), embeds them in a proper sociospatial context
(Grabher, 2006), involves all kinds of local agents and builds upon the resilience of local
talent in the first place (Aoyama, 2009).
The main threat from mono-directional developmental visions and their policy
failures is that they may undermine, in the eyes of the public opinion, the credibility
of any kind of approach that leverages the transformational potential of culture and

creativity. In this way, the failure of the model and its regulatory design carries over to
the developmental factors on which the model builds — a logical inconsistency, but a
typical outcome of the policy discourse. As a matter of fact, if we want to make sense
of culture-led local development, we need to look at it from a sufficiently holistic
perspective (see Scott, 2000; Hutton, 2004; Amin and Thrift, 2007; Landry, 2008). What
is needed is to embed this intuition in a proper conceptual context that may inspire
sensible, effective, socially sustainable policies (see the critical discussion in Scott,
2006). Our aim is to give a positive contribution in this direction.
Urban cultural policies: a reference taxonomy

Cultural urban policies are, quite naturally, the primary regulatory framework for
culture- and creativity-based developmental models. There are, in principle, many ways
to build a (possibly historically based) taxonomy to identify the spectrum of alternatives.
Bianchini (1999), for instance, distinguishes three historical phases, namely, the eras of
Reconstruction, Participation, and Territorial Marketing, respectively. In this article, we
rather adopt a fourfold taxonomy (see Table 1), while still keeping, as in Bianchini
(1999), a historically referenced approach — our taxonomy may thus be regarded as a
refocusing of his. For each phase, we take as the main axes the orientation and goals of
each approach. Any approach to cultural policy is therefore identified by its driving
policy priority. It can be resumed as follows.
Clearly, a real-world cultural policy may actually mix up several components from the
above taxonomy. In spite of this, however, there is typically one orientation that prevails
and that becomes the main focus of the public debate. This is also due to the fact that the
various approaches are not entirely mutually compatible. For instance, the conservative
orientation toward positional rent seeking that is proper to the Economic approach
does not match nicely with the emphasis on structural change and the far-reaching
transformational impetus of (less instrumental examples of) the Regenerative and, even
more, of the Progressive approach. In principle, more instrumental policy orientations (as
found in the Educational and Economic approach, but also in several instances of the
Regenerative approach) are more prone to rely upon mono-causal effects and less
dependent on social participation (Sacco and Tavano Blessi, 2009). Which dimension
becomes the real driver, then, depends to a crucial extent on the history and quality of the
public discourse about culture — and on the level of active cultural participation of the
local community: the higher the participation, the more proactive and transformational,
ceteris paribus, the prevailing approach.
The main issue with participative cultural policies is that many of their positive
effects, as a rule, are difficult to observe directly and require relatively sophisticated
forms of measurement (Evans and Shaw, 2004). Therefore, to be properly appreciated
and evaluated, the most ambitious and sophisticated approaches to cultural policies need
a public opinion that is familiar with cultural practices and with their effects at the
individual and social levels. The underlying social dynamics, therefore, clearly identifies
the possibility of virtuous circles but also of perverse lock-ins. The more that general
audiences successfully manage to access cultural experiences and opportunities, the
more capable they become of appreciating their benefits, and the more willing they
become to advocate and support them, and vice versa (Sacco et al., 2009). As a
consequence of this, different approaches may coexist in different socioeconomic
contexts at a given time. If culture has to acquire a real relevance in long-term
development options, however, only approaches that are proactive and participatory
enough may be socially sustainable — because they fuel the virtuous circle of social
legitimization just described.
Consider, for instance, the differences in levels of citizens’ practice of amateur
cultural activities in the EU15 countries, as measured by a recent Eurobarometer survey

Table 1 Alternative approaches to cultural policy
Approach Orientations Goals

Educational Culture as a source of spiritual cultivation Educating and civilizing local populations
and the social identification of individuals. through exposure to high culture.
Culture is a social merit (public) good. Public expenditure focuses on the
Consequently, urban policies in the conservation of cultural heritage and
cultural realm have a paternalistic cultural facilities such as theatres,
character, aimed at maximizing the libraries and museums, which are typically
educational and civilizing function localized in the city core. At the same
of the cultural sector. Typical of time, cultural activity within these
post-second-world-war reconstruction and facilities is publicly promoted and
associated with the consolidation of the sustained, through grants aimed at
modern welfare state. maximizing accessibility by the general
public.
Economic Culture as a source of effective Strongly promoting local cultural assets
demand for the economy as a whole. and landmarks, building on the cultural
Socioeconomic development causes identity of the city to enhance its
an increasingly differentiated demand attractiveness for non-local audiences.
for cultural experiences and services, The city strategy is based on the
sustained by a parallel increase in the maximization of (cultural) positional rents
average willingness to pay by households. (as happens in many ‘art cities’). A policy
The development of full-fledged cultural focus on strengthening cultural
districts within the city core becomes a infrastructural capital is often overtaken
possible engine of growth for the local by spending on ephemeral but highly
economy, and cultural policies aim to visible and attractive events (blockbuster
stimulate their scale and attractiveness, exhibitions, once-in-a-lifetime concerts
also with regard to non-local audiences. etc).
Regenerative Culture as a platform for the Restoration of large portions of the urban
reconstruction of a compromised local fabric and a change in the use for which
identity. Facing the decline of the they are intended. Attraction of firms,
traditional local economic base and capital and people from outside the city
the implied social, economic and through intense city marketing aimed at
environmental tensions, the need to break drastically improving the city’s image and
new ground makes of culture an attractive reputation. A policy focus on invigorating
outside option from the status quo. the vitality of the city’s cultural scene
Necessity to relocate the unemployed through support for local creative
workforce, and to find new occupational communities or (often alternatively)
opportunities for the young to avoid their through the attraction of opinion-forming
flight to other territories. Necessity to fill external cultural players and through the
the urban voids left by the downsizing or careful design of ‘culturally cosy’ new
shutting down of traditional economic settlements.
activities.
Progressive Culture as a factor in the deep structural Reaching out for a true synthesis of
transformation of the local economy and the symbolic, social and economic
society in the post-industrial context. components of the structural adaptation
Necessity to redefine the foundations of of the local system to global competitive
civic identity through participation in an pressures. Culture as a platform for the
increasingly fragmented society where the production of collective wellbeing
very idea of a common good and common (investment in various forms of bonding
community interests becomes a challenge. and bridging social capital), collective
Cultural participation becomes a basic orientation to the production and
dimension of everyday civic life, and of circulation of knowledge (investment in
knowledge-intensive production and various forms of human and informational
social interaction. The cultural sector capital and of bridging social capital), and
ceases to be an enclave of the local identity of place and sense of belonging
economy and becomes an open sector (production of symbolic capital). A policy
with a key cross-fertilizing function and focus on long-term projects where the
very active exchanges with other tangible and intangible components of
productive sectors in terms of innovation cultural infrastructuring are strategically
practices, lifelong learning, organizational linked through a widely shared long-term
cohesion and so on. strategic perspective.

Table 2 Cultural participation vs cultural activism in EU27 countries
Citizens who
Citizens Engaging Declare that
in Amateur Citizens would be the
Cultural Activities Best Promoters of New
Country of the EU during the Year (%) Cultural Initiatives (%)
Sweden 93 33
Estonia 87 23
Luxembourg 84 24
Slovak Republic 83 13
Finland 82 27
France 80 25
Denmark 79 30
Netherlands 78 28
Belgium 78 19
Germany 77 27
United Kingdom 74 23
Czech Republic 73 13
Slovenia 68 23
Austria 66 15
EU 27 average 62 19
Ireland 59 14
Latvia 57 24
Cyprus 53 16
Malta 51 14
Italy 51 12
Hungary 48 13
Spain 46 12
Lithuania 44 27
Romania 42 9
Greece 41 17
Poland 38 16
Portugal 27 5
Bulgaria 21 12
Source: Authors’ elaboration based on data from Eurobarometer (2007)
(2007), and levels of citizens’ bias toward their own cultural activism as measured in the
same survey (see Table 2).
Interestingly, all countries that show above EU27-average figures for cultural
participation, also show above EU27-average figures in citizen activism in culture, with
the exception of the ‘Mitteleuropean block’ (the Slovak Republic, Czech Republic and
Austria), where it is felt that the key player in relative terms (apart from the obvious ones)
should be the regional government (Austria) or trust foundations and NGOs (Czech and
Slovak Republics). Conversely, all countries with below-average cultural participation
also turn out to be below average in citizen activism, with the exception of two of the
Baltic Republics (Lithuania and Latvia — the third Baltic Republic, Estonia, is above

average in both participation and activism), which are clearly under the cultural influence
of Northern European countries (Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and
Germany). Actually, Northern European countries show the highest figures in both
participation and activism. Not incidentally, these latter countries (together with the
United Kingdom, which has the longest historical tradition in this respect) are also the
ones that are currently most engaged with a Progressive cultural policy approach (see
EZ-OCW, 2009). On the other hand, conservative and/or rent-seeking approaches to
cultural policy have so far prevailed in Mediterranean countries, which generally show
low rates of both participation and activism — although also in these contexts there may
be large regional differences, as for instance in the case of culturally dynamic regions
such as Catalunya and the Basque Country in Spain.
The key to a credible policy option for culture as a leading development driver,
therefore, does not have to do primarily with emphasizing the instrumental value of
culture for the pursuit of non-cultural goals, such as economic development or urban
rejuvenation, but rather with establishing an intrinsically motivated and firmly
empowered community commitment to active, purposeful participation in cultural life
(Sacco and Tavano Blessi, 2009; Ferilli et al., 2011).
From cultural policies to cultural

planning: a regulatory framework
Designing a cultural policy is basically a matter of making choices about trade-offs. It is
the cultural policy orientation that generally solves the dilemma by calling its hierarchy
of priorities into play and so letting one option prevail over its rivals. Bianchini (1993)
identifies four main dilemmas that are typical of the cultural policy agenda: urban centre
vs periphery, inclusion vs gentrification, consumption-oriented vs production-oriented
public expenditure, and support for structural vs ephemeral activities. It is mainly within
this menu of dilemmas that the unwanted and unforeseen effects of cultural policies
materialize, as different cultural policy orientations generally tend to address some of
them explicitly but leave the others in the background — so that they inevitably tend to
attract and absorb most of the structural imbalances of the policy action. Maintaining a
global view of the design process means abandoning the idea of cultural policies as a
regulatory package that supersedes a specific aspect of local governance, to move
towards a more strategically integrated perspective where the cultural dimension
becomes increasingly interdependent with other policy dimensions (Mercer, 2006) —
a methodological leap that is somewhat implicit in the most advanced examples of
the Regenerative approach, and even more typical of the Progressive approach to
cultural policy. It is in these terms that the complex systems metaphor may be properly
translated into a manageable urban policy context. Making constructive use of such a
metaphor amounts to remapping the whole system of interdependencies in a suitable,
design-oriented way in order to gain logical control of the spectrum of possible
homeostatic mechanisms and feedback loops that may (and can) be activated by a given
policy action. Only in this case we are in the position of analysing policy choices and
evaluating their impacts rather than simply describing them — although, as we shall see,
arriving at a workable description of possible policy menus and actions may be a
worthwhile goal in itself.
In our view, a fully developed cultural planning approach may be organized
by suitably articulating the structural complexity of the target phenomena into a
small number of characteristic, design-relevant axes. In particular, our proposed
methodological approach revolves around three main tenets: Themes, Facilities and
Critical Dimensions — that is to say, respectively, the contextual field, the tangible
(physical) or intangible medium, and the functional priority to which the policy action
refers. More specifically, by ‘themes’ we mean the main sectoral partitions — visual arts,

performing arts, music, heritage and so on; see, for example, KEA European Affairs
(2006) for a widely used classification — and territorial scales around which the cultural
discourse is organized. Notice that, within a Regenerative or Progressive policy
approach, the sectoral aspect of the themes also concerns the strategic interdependences
between any given cultural and non-cultural sector of the local economy (see e.g. Bakshi
et al., 2008). The ‘facilities’ tenet spans the tangible and intangible infrastructural
dimension of cultural and creative activities (that is, facilities and their actual usages),
grouping them by broad functional classes — museums, libraries and archives, theatres
and performing art centres, cultural community centres, poly-functional cultural spaces
and so on, for the physical side; and exhibitions, live shows, workshops, community
activities and so on for the intangible side. As to the ‘critical dimensions’ (see Box 1
below), they are a set of developmental (meta-) factors that characterize state-of-the-art
culture-led approaches and that have been derived from an extensive meta-analytic
review of the literature (see Sacco, Ferilli and Tavano Blessi, 2010), embedded in a
specific spatial approach (see Sacco et al., forthcoming a) and qualitatively tested on a
panel of advanced, at least partially successful and at the same time structurally
heterogeneous recent case studies of culture-led development (for an in-depth analysis of
some of them see Sacco et al., forthcoming b).
As explained by Sacco, Ferilli and Tavano Blessi (2010), these 12 (meta-)factors are
all, taken individually, part of some successful mono-causal developmental scheme that
may be found in the recent literature. The distinctive feature of our approach is to
reposition them within a more general framework where they can synergize in many
different, idiosyncratic ways from one local setting to another. They may be gathered into
five groups: Quality (QCS, QLG, QPK), Attraction (AEF, AET), Genius Loci (DLE,
DLT), Sociality (MSC, CBE, LCI), and Networking (INW, ENW). Our (meta-)factors
are complex constructs that combine structural elements and agency and whose precise
operational translation calls for detailed work on definitional issues and calibration of
empirical proxies. This choice — maintaining a very qualitative statement of the basic
framework with a complementary structure–agency character — is motivated, on the one
hand, by the need to develop a policy-oriented synthesis where the developmental impact
of the structural factors is intrinsically combined with (and dependent on) actual policy
choices and, on the other, by the need to work within a broad conceptual framework that
cannot be mechanically reduced to an invariable, small set of indicators that, once taken
as the reference for policy design, leads to forced and oversimplified recipes, as happens
for instance with the ‘3Ts’ creative class formula. What this general framework suggests,
as was hinted in the introductory discussion, is that certain factors may be important, but
lead to misleading interpretations once they are turned into mono-causal schemes. It is
the successful blending and joint effect of many concurrent factors that is able to spark
a viable culture-led development dynamics. The twelve critical dimensions, among other
things, basically span (but cannot be reduced to) three distinct mono-causal schemes
(most characteristic dimensions in italics):
1 The attractiveness effect singled out by Richard Florida (2002): AET, AEF, DLT,
DLE, QCS, QPK, QLG, ENW;
2 The competitive restructuring effect singled out by Michael Porter (1989; 2003):
QCS, QPK, QLG, DLT, DLE, AET, AEF, INW, ENW]; and
3 The capability building effect singled out by Amartya Sen (2000) MSC, CBE, LCI,
DLT, DLE, INW, QLG (Sacco, Ferilli and Tavano Blessi, 2010).
Any single effect taken in isolation generates a typical, dysfunctional distortion:

instrumentalization of cultural activity and participation (Florida); over-engineering of
the developmental process (Porter); bonded parochialism (Sen). Once policies are
designed within a strategic framework that systematically addresses the full system of
interdependences, the various effects may interact so as to generate a self-reinforcing
process of cumulative growth (Sacco and Tavano Blessi, 2007; Sacco and Segre, 2009).

Box 1 The twelve critical dimensions
1 Quality of Cultural Supply (QCS)

The existence of a cultural milieu of organizations and institutions that represent and organize
the local creativity base while at the same time providing challenging cultural standards,
making the local cultural supply palatable to wider, though specific, global audiences.
2 Quality of Local Governance (QLG)
One or more local administrations credibly committing to the enhancement of the coordination
of and cooperation between local actors around a shared, socially equitable knowledge-
development-based vision.
3 Quality of the Production of Knowledge (QPK)
The existence of a strong base of educational, research and knowledge transfer institutions
that present at least a few areas of excellence.
4 Development of Local Entrepreneurship (DLE)
The availability of (merit-based) opportunities and facilities to develop new entrepreneurial
projects by local people in knowledge-related sectors.
5 Development of Local Talent (DLT)
The existence of a stimulating and motivating social and cultural environment that encourages
the skilled and creatively talented young to emerge, rewards them, and provides them with
opportunities to showcase their work and to expose it to qualified talent-scouts.
6 Attraction of External Firms and Investments (AEF)
The creation of the legal, financial, logistic, environmental and sociocultural conditions for
non-local knowledge-related firms to settle down, and for outside capital to be invested locally.
7 Attraction of External Talent (AET)
Creating the logistic, sociocultural conditions for emerging and acclaimed talents to settle
down — or at least to acquire a stake — in the local milieu as part of the development of their
professional career and relationships.
8 Management of Social Criticalities (MSC)
The use of culture and knowledge-related activities and practices as basic, widely tested tools
for the mediation and the rehabilitation of socially critical situations.
9 Capability Building and Education of the Local Community (CBE)
Devising and implementing community-wide initiatives aimed at fostering a systematic and
widespread accumulation of intangible assets, especially in terms of capability of access to
knowledge-intensive experiences.
10 Local community involvement (LCI)
Promoting extensive and generalized participation in and attendance of knowledge-related
initiatives and practices by all local communities.
11 Internal Networking (INW)
Providing strong networking among all local players who have complementary strategic
interests and fostering close, regular cooperation and coordination in their activities.
12 External Networking (ENW)
Establishing a dense, stable web of relationships with a number of other local contexts
characterized by similar tensions toward the development of system-wide, knowledge-
intensive cultural, social and economic orientations.
On the other hand, the agency component that refers to each factor can be partly ascribed
to both the policymaker and local players, thus allowing for various degrees of
decentralization of the policy action, depending on the actual agency profile that is being
solicited.
This general methodology, which develops a policy design framework that is
applicable to a variety of different approaches to culture-led development in a variety of
different social, economic and cultural contexts, does not amount, then, to putting
forward a top-down planning approach, insensitive to local conditions and needs, and
focusing on a predetermined causation scheme — quite the contrary. Its aim is to put the
policy planner in a position to establish a proactive dialogue with the self-organizing,
adaptive forces of the local system to corroborate the policy actions rather than trying to

Quality of Cultural Supply (QCS)
Quality Quality of Local Governance (QLG)
Quality of the Production of Knowledge

(QPK)
Development of Local Entrepreneurship
Genius loci (DLE)
Development of Local Talent (DLT)
Attraction of External Firms (AEF)

Attraction
Attraction of External Talent (AET)
Internal Networking (IN)

Networking
External Networking (EN)
Management of Social Criticalities (MSC)
Skills Building and Education of the Local

Sociality
Community (CBE)
Local community Involvement (LCI)
Natural Symbolic
Physical Capital Human Capital Social Capital
Capital Capital
(PC) (HC) (SoC)
(NC) (SyC)
Figure 1 The strategic matrix
cage them in the prescriptions of a predetermined policy agenda. In the language of

systems theory, it is an open loop approach where the ongoing interplay between the
planner and the system is an integral part of the design methodology itself.
The three tenets of our approach, Themes, Facilities, and Critical Dimensions, can be
logically combined to obtain strategic matrices that are the working tools for policy
purposes. One of the most useful combinations is the one that sets the twelve Critical
Dimensions against a ‘macro’ representation of the Facilities dimension that simply
records the tangible and intangible asset classes into which the various kinds of
infrastructures can be grouped — two tangible ones, natural and physical capital, and the
three intangible ones, human, social and symbolic capital (see Sacco et al. 2008; 2009).
We will refer to this particular matrix as the strategic matrix (see Figure 1), that is, the
main working tool, although, as we will suggest below, many different ones can be built
according to policy necessities.
A cultural policy (possibly further decomposed into policy actions) may be
represented as a configuration of the strategic matrix, either in binary or fuzzy terms
(i.e. in terms of the deterministic or fuzzy relevance of each cell), or in terms of a
vector of measurable indicators. In particular, a purely descriptive use of the matrix
can be achieved by means of a binary or fuzzy scalar representation. In the most
simple binary representation, the matrix entries are simply 0 or 1, depending on
whether a specific factor/asset couple is given relevance in the cultural policy plan or
not. For instance, a ‘1’ in the QCS/NC entry at the top left of the matrix would
indicate that the cultural policy contemplates actions aimed at improving natural
capital through cultural projects, for instance inviting an artist or an architect to carry
out a community project involving the reforestation of urban spaces, the creation of
collective orchards and gardens and so on — think, for example, of the Serpentine
Gallery Pavillion by Peter Zumthor in London, which recreates a hortus conclusus
within Kensington Gardens (Stathaki, 2011). Likewise, a ‘0’ entry would mean that the
policy does not contemplate such actions. A more sophisticated coding would make
use of fuzzy measures (Klir and Yuan, 1995), so that, rather than a binary ‘all or
nothing’ description, one could assign to each cell a fuzzy value, that is, a real number
between 0 and 1 that could be scaled in accordance with some predetermined criterion
such as the percentage amount of total resources allocated to actions pertaining to that
specific cell. In either case, a global structural picture of the packet of policy actions

under way is obtained, in other words a way of spelling out the actual content of a
policy strategy in a compact analytical form, but not yet a truly systemic representation
in terms of states and controls. Nevertheless, for certain policy goals, this may already
be enough to support the decision-making process by pinning down a clear-cut set of
different policy options for discussion from a very large and complex menu of
possibilities — especially when the bounded rationality and the biases that are typical
of many policymakers and of their actual practices and routines are taken into account
(Jones, 2003).
To arrive at a full-fledged systemic approach, each matrix cell should contain a whole
vector of indicators measuring various aspects of the actions relevant for that cell
(budgets, participation, user evaluations, outcome measures and so on), thereby
separating the structural and agency components of each given factor by identifying them
with suitable indicators. This richer coding allows a proper optimal control perspective,
in that one can now distinguish, within the set of indicators, a subset of ‘states’ (which
are influenced by the policy action but are not directly under control of the policymaker),
and a subset of (open loop) ‘controls’, which instead directly reflect the policy action
undertaken. This is, of course, the most appropriate specification of the methodology, but
the actual format chosen clearly depends on the planners’ objectives, on the available
information-processing and planning skills, on the availability of data and so on. It is
useful to point out, moreover, that one can build either ex ante (i.e. in terms of expected
binary or fuzzy membership, or in terms of a vector of quantitative indicators including
target values for state indicators) or ex post (i.e. in terms of actual values of state
indicators) matrices, so that all kinds of familiar exercises in design, monitoring and
performance evaluation can be carried out through suitable comparisons of the ex ante/ex
post matrices in the ‘optimal control’ full specification, while leaving room for some
simple comparative analysis in the descriptive binary or fuzzy specification. Thus, the
design and evaluation of a whole cultural strategy may be conducted in terms of the
(dynamic) analysis of the global structure of the matrix. Generally, biased mono-causal
approaches tend to occupy only limited sections of the matrix, with the consequence that
the system is exposed to critical structural imbalances (see Sacco and Tavano Blessi,
2007). For instance, classical ‘creative class’ policies tend to be weak on the Sociality
dimensions.
Policies can be further disaggregated into policy actions, which can again be
represented by means of suitable matrices (including the strategic matrix), once we ask
the following questions:
• How does a given action fit into the range of Themes that are characteristic of the
(given) cultural planning strategy as a whole?
• Which Facilities does it aim to build or consolidate?
• Which Critical Dimensions does it address, at what level and with what expected
effects on the system’s assets or target indicators?
In principle, one could build an all-encompassing 3D strategic matrix by combining
Themes vs Facilities vs Critical Dimensions along the lines already described above.
But, for specific policy purposes, one could construct other suitable 2D matrices such as
a Themes/Critical Dimensions, a Facilities/Critical Dimensions, or a Themes/Facilities
(or a condensed Themes/Assets) matrix. In this way, it is possible to define and design
policy actions from several different angles and at different levels of specificity. A very
useful tool for this purpose would be a policy design shell (software) that would
implement the whole process, giving access to specific matrices according to needs
within an integrated e-planning environment, and also accommodating the introduction
and testing of specific design principles and planning routines. This is a challenging task,
and represents an avenue for future research.
This methodology not only allows one to overcome the biases of mono-causal
approaches, but also to address and correct the policymaker’s cognitive biases, which
typically lead the policy strategy to focus upon specific sectors of activity or kinds of

cultural facilities for contingent reasons and through overemphasis of personal

interests and inclinations. With the provision instead of a systematic representation of
the whole field of policy alternatives, it becomes possible to ponder and address more
subtle ones, for instance those relying upon the spillovers between cultural and non-
cultural sectors — whose neglect causes a typical policy failure: underestimating the
positive complementarity effects of cross-fertilization in contexts such as innovation
(Bakshi et al., 2008) or social cohesion (Carr and Servon, 2009). The methodology
proposed here can be taken as a basis for the development of a full-blown planning
approach. A thorough presentation and discussion of this point is, however, beyond the
scope and space limitations of this article and will be pursued elsewhere.
Making reference to a common conceptual framework for policy design and evaluation
becomes necessary once one realizes the difficulties of carrying out effective governance
in a context characterized by an unprecedented complexity due to the level of connectivity
and heterogeneity of the actors involved (see Ache, 2000). In the words of Kooiman (1993:
258), governance can be defined as ‘the pattern or structure that emerges in sociopolitical
systems as a “common” result or outcome of the interacting intervention efforts of all
involved actors’. As already remarked, governance, in other words, is an ‘emergent’
phenomenon in the sense of complex systems theory, which could, in principle, even do
without the presence of a central authority (O’Mahony and Ferraro, 2007). Effective
governance is therefore a matter of successful social coordination among heterogeneous
agents with heterogeneous ends, which should not simply lead to a mutually satisfactory
solution, but should enable the system to adapt to all circumstances without compromising
its level of coordination, and possibly improving it (Lange, 2011). In this respect, a few
important aspects that deserve special attention are:
• Coordination is the more challenging the more diversified the involved stakeholders
are and the more heterogeneous their cultural background (Loshin, 2009) — an aspect
so central in many post-industrial urban contexts today that we may legitimately speak
of an intercultural dimension of planning (Bloomfield and Bianchini, 2004).
• Coordination requires common codes to scale down the complexity of the search
space and to help in evaluating the outcomes and productivity of the search strategies
that have been carried out (Efferson et al., 2008).
• Successful coordination allows far-reaching co-creation processes to be activated
involving the local community and outside experts and volunteers in the in-depth
design of innovative policy actions (Ettlinger, 2009), displaying, as Landry (2008)
puts it, ‘lateral’ qualities, e.g. addressing unexpected issues through familiar tools or,
conversely, addressing familiar issues through unexpected tools.
In a complex systems perspective, therefore, coordinating a specific methodology
for policy design and evaluation that relies on a global, intelligible view of system
interdependencies is a key component of successful governance. To make it work, it has
to be tested and adaptively shaped in a variety of policy contexts so as to enhance its
usability, precision and effectiveness. With reference to the methodology presented here,
some experiments are now under way to put it to work in real-world policy design
contexts involving local administrations. A relatively advanced experiment has been
conducted in the past four years in the city of Faenza, a historic Italian town with a
remarkable cultural heritage and a centuries-long tradition in ceramics manufacturing,
which needed a radical ‘creative shock’ to redefine its long-term developmental model.
The preliminary results of this experiment are presented in a separate article (Sacco,
Conti et al., 2010).
Putting the toolbox to work: some hints

To appreciate fully the practical possibilities offered by the strategic matrix approach, let
us consider for a moment a good example of a traditional methodology for cultural policy

design and evaluation — the study that Evans and Shaw (2004) prepared for the UK
Department of Culture, Media and Sport as a basis for the design of a culture-led urban
regeneration strategy at national level. By elaborating upon it, we can derive the
following schematic ‘effects model’ to be used to analyse the expected effects of a
cultural planning strategy for the regeneration of a given urban context (see Table 3).
Although certainly effective at an immediate, intuitive descriptive level, this list tells
us very little about, say, the possible strategic complementarities existing between the
various goals, and how they are in principle going to affect one another once a certain
series of policy actions is implemented. Yet this is the sort of blueprint on which the
design of most policy actions is based in current practice. In a sense, the difference
between this kind of list and a proper conceptual framework for the design and evaluation
of cultural planning strategies is the same as that which divides an item-based intuitive
budgeting technique from analytical accounting. Let us see, then, how in this example we
can rework the effects model shown above by making use of the conceptualization
provided by the strategic matrix while still maintaining it at a (more deeply analytic)
descriptive level.
Once the new framework is adopted, it soon becomes clear that the list of effects is too
generic. Think, for example, of the first item in the list: re-use of abandoned buildings.
One might say: since the building is now abandoned, any sensible use of it after recovery
will do. But, from the point of view of the effective use of public resources (not to speak
of private ones), it makes a lot of difference what kind of use is chosen for the building.
Shouldn’t this aspect be embedded in the basic layer of the strategic design process? In
the strategic matrix methodology, we are dealing with an increase in the physical stock
of (usable) capital, so it is necessary to ask what specific critical dimension(s) this
particular recovery action is going to address: providing work facilities for local deprived
communities of creative activists (PC→DLT+MSC)?; providing facilities for start-ups
by young graduates from the local university (PC→DLE+QPC)?; creating a new social
community centre hosting services of social aggregation as well as cultural access and
animation for people with low schooling (PC, SC→LCI,CBC)? Even addressing this one
simple question shows how a really articulated conceptual framework for policy design
may help both policymakers and the local community to put problems into focus more
quickly, more precisely and more constructively by layering down actions in terms of a
specific policy matrix configuration. Moreover, by so doing it is possible to repack policy
actions into different groups, not simply in terms of the kind of intervention (physical vs
economic revitalization, for instance), but also of its strategic role and expected
complementarity with other projects, irrespective of whether they entail working on
physical or intangible assets. For instance, re-use of abandoned buildings could be
grouped with development of third sector organizations, if the cultural planning strategy
entails restoration of buildings to provide facilities for under-endowed local civil society
organizations.
In this way, it is possible to rework the effects model entirely by coding expected
effects in ways that are both less ambiguous and immediately readable in their strategic
implications, as well as by taking the extra step and providing each action with its own
battery of qualitative and quantitative target (ex ante) or evaluation (ex post) indicators
to carefully define its agency profile and so on. Exemplifying at length and with all due
detail how this might be carried out is beyond the scope and space limitations of the
present article, however.
Conclusions
The complexity of the policy issues to be tackled in contemporary urban settings calls
for new methodologies articulate enough to capture the system of interdependences
among policy and state variables and, at the same time, usable enough to be employed
in current planning design practice. The increasing competition among local systems

Table 3 The effects model
Effects on Physical Regeneration Effects on Economic Regeneration Effects on Social Regeneration

• Reuse of abandoned buildings • Increase in public and private investment • Change of residents’ perception of the place they
• Increased use of public space • Increase in the level of expenditure of local residents live in
• Decrease in vandalism and increase and visitors • Increased confidence and aspirations of local

in the sense of safety • Job creation residents
• Pride and sense of belonging • Better capacity to attract and keep companies on site • Better capacity of expression and communication of
• Increase in the real estate value of • Better capacity to keep graduates and creative ideas and needs
A strategic framework for cultural planning
the areas professionals within the region • Development of third-sector organizations

• Involvement of artists in urban • Increased heterogeneity of workforce profiles • Enhanced organizational capacity of local players
recovery projects. • Development push for new firms, commercial and • Increase in social capital
entertainment services • Change in the perceived image and reputation of the
• Increased incidence of partnerships among public, place and its inhabitants.
private and third-sector parties
• Increased involvement of the corporate world in the
cultural sector.
15
to elaborate successful models of culture-led development through suitably targeted

policies may, to a degree, be conducive to some common organizational framework to
achieve this goal, the more so the stronger the competitors’ efforts toward a consistent
and far-reaching use of planning tools happen to be (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). In
this article we have presented a conceptual framework that is a possible first step in
this direction and that is currently being tested in some real-world, but still very
preliminary, policy design experiments. We believe that in the coming years there will
be an increasing amount of interest in developing tools of this kind, not only to support
the decision making of policy professionals, but also, and most importantly, to enable
local community leaders, stakeholders and citizens to participate in an active and
responsible way in collective decision making, thereby leading to more decentralized
and inclusive forms of community governance. There is reason to expect that the
expanding scale of social cooperation in the generation of contents in so many
different contexts of human activity (Tapscott and Williams, 2008) can, and will, also
extend to planning discourse, and cultural planning in particular represents a double
opportunity: not only to benefit from this sort of mass cooperation and coordination in
devising the best ways to create social and economic value from cultural and creative
activity, but also in enabling more and more people to give a substantial contribution
through the empowerment effect that is typically the consequence of cultural
participation. Enlargement of participation rates to cultural and creative activities is a
necessary condition for (and the best guarantee of) the social sustainability of such
processes (Shirky, 2008). We are possibly witnessing the beginning a new era of
cultural planning and of urban development models. We look forward to this with
extreme interest and hope.
Pier Luigi Sacco (pierluigi.sacco@iulm.it), Institute of Arts, Cultures, and Comparative

Literatures, IULM University — Via Carlo Bo, 1, 20143 Milan, Italy, and Alessandro Crociata
(a.crociata@unich.it), Department of Economic, Quantitative, Philosophical and
Educational Sciences, G. D’Annunzio University, Viale Pindaro 42, 65100 Pescara, Italy.
References
Ache, P. (2000) Vision and creativity — Aumann, R. and J.H. Dreze (2008) Rational
challenge for city regions. Futures 32.5, expectations in games. American
435–49. Economic Review 98.1, 72–86.
Alfasi, N. and J. Portugali (2007) Planning Bakshi, H., E. McVittie and J. Simmie (2008)
rules for a self-planned city. Planning Creating innovation. Do the creative
Theory 6.2, 164–82. industries support innovation in the wider
Amin, A. and N. Thrift (2007) economy? Research Report, NESTA,
Cultural-economy and cities. Progress in London.
Human Geography 31.2, 143–61. Bianchini, F. (1993) Remaking European
Aoyama, Y. (2009) Artists, tourists, and the cities: the role of cultural policies. In
state: cultural tourism and the Flamenco F. Bianchini and M. Parkinson (eds.),
industry in Andalusia, Spain. International Cultural policy and urban regeneration:
Journal of Urban and Regional Research the West European experience, Manchester
33.1, 80–104. University Press, Manchester.
Ashby, R. (1954) Design for a brain: the Bianchini, F. (1999) Cultural planning for
origin of adaptive behavior. Wiley, urban sustainability. In L. Nystrom (ed.),
New York. City and culture: cultural processes and
Atkinson, R. and H. Easthope (2009) The urban sustainability, The Swedish Urban
consequences of the creative class: the Enviroment Council, Stockholm.
pursuit of creativity strategies in Australia’s Bleakley, A. (2004) ‘Your creativity or
cities. International Journal of Urban and mine?’: A typology of creativities in higher
Regional Research 33.1, 64–79. education and the value of a pluralistic

approach. Teaching in Higher Education Ministry of Education, Culture and

9.4, 463–75. Science, The Hague.
Bloomfield, J. and F. Bianchini (2004) Ferilli, G., P.L. Sacco and G. Tavano Blessi
Planning for the intercultural city. (2011) Cities as creative hubs: from the
Comedia, Stroud. instrumental to the functional value of
Carr, J.H. and L.J. Servon (2009) Vernacular culture-led local development. In L. Fusco
culture and urban economic development: Girard and P. Nijkamp (eds.), Sustainable
thinking outside the (big) box. Journal of city and creativity, Ashgate, Farnham.
the American Planning Association 75.1, Florida, R. (2002) The rise of the creative
28–40. class. Basic Books, New York.
Crociata, A. (2009) A multidimensional Florida, R. (2005) The flight of the creative
framework of cultural economics. Global class. Harper Collins, New York.
and Local Economic Review 13.1, 101–22. Florida, R. (2008) Who’s your city? Basic
Dacey, R. (1976) Theory absorption and the Books, New York.
testability of economic theory. Journal of Foster, D.P. and H.P. Young (2001) On the
Economics 36.3/4, 247–67. impossibility of predicting the behavior
Dacey, R. (1979) The effects of theory and of rational agents. Proceedings of the
data in economic prediction. Kyklos 28.2, National Academy of Sciences USA 98.22,
407–11. 12848–53.
DeFilippi, R., G. Grabher and C. Jones Grabher, G. (2006) Trading routes, bypasses,
(2007) Introduction to paradoxes of and risky intersections: mapping the
creativity: managerial and organizational travels of ‘networks’ between economic
challenges in the cultural economy. sociology and economic geography.
Journal of Organizational Behavior 28.5, Progress in Human Geography 30.1, 1–45.
511–21. Haken, H. (2004) Synergetics: introduction
Dembski, S. and W. Salet (2010) The and advanced topics. Springer, Berlin.
transformative potential of institutions: Healey, P. (2004) Creativity and urban
how symbolic markers can institute new governance. Policy Studies 25.2, 87–102.
social meaning in changing cities. Hoyman, M. and C. Faricy (2009) It takes a
Environment and Planning A 42.3, village: a test of the creative class, social
611–25. capital and human capital theories. Urban
DiMaggio, P.J. and W.W. Powell (1983) The Affairs Review 44.3, 311–33.
iron cage revisited: institutional Hutton, T. (2004) The new economy of the
isomorphism and collective rationality in inner city. Cities 21.2, 89–108.
organizational fields. American Jones, B.D. (2003) Bounded rationality and
Sociological Review 48.2, 147–60. political science: lessons from public
Efferson, C., R. Lalive and E. Fehr (2008) administration and public policy. Journal
The coevolution of cultural groups and of Public Administration Research and
ingroup favoritism. Science 321.5897, Theory 13.4, 395–412.
1844–49. KEA European Affairs (2006) The economy
Ettlinger, N. (2009) Surmounting city of culture in Europe. The European
silences: knowledge creation and the Commission, Brussels.
design of the urban democracy in the Kirk, D.E. (1970) Optimal control theory: an
everyday economy. International Journal introduction. Prentice-Hall, Englewood
of Urban and Regional Research 33.1, Cliffs, NJ.
217–30. Klir, G.J. and B. Yuan (1995) Fuzzy sets and
Eurobarometer (2007) European cultural fuzzy logic. Theory and applications.
values. Special Eurobarometer issue #278, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
The European Commission, Brussels. Kooiman, J. (1993) Findings, speculations,
Evans, G. and P. Shaw (2004) The and recommendations. In J. Kooiman (ed.),
contribution of culture to regeneration in Modern governance. New government–
the UK: a review of evidence. A report to society interactions, Sage, London.
the DMCS. London Metropolitan Landry, C. (2008) The creative city. A toolkit
University, London. for urban innovators. Second edition,
EZ-OCW (2009) Creative value. Culture and Earthscan, London.
economy policy paper, The Dutch Ministry Lange, B. (2011) Re-scaling governance in
of Economic Affairs and the Dutch Berlin’s creative economy. Culture

Unbound. Journal of Current Cultural innovation systems theory. Environment

Research 3, 187–208 [WWW document]. and Planning C 27.2, 319–39.
URL http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se/ Peck, J. (2005) Struggling with the creative
v3/a14/cu11v3a14.pdf (accessed 2 class. International Journal of Urban and
February 2012). Regional Research 29.4, 740–70.
Lewis, N.M. and B. Donald (2010) A new Plaza, B. (2008) On some challenges and
rubric for ‘creative city’ potential in conditions for the Guggenheim Museum
Canada’s smaller cities. Urban Studies Bilbao to be an effective economic re-
47.1, 29–54. activator. International Journal of Urban
Loshin, D. (2009) Master data management. and Regional Research 32.2, 506–17.
Morgan Kaufmann, Burlington, MA. Ponzini, D. (2009) Urban implications of
Lucas, R.E., Jr. and T.J. Sargent (eds.) (1981) cultural policy networks: the case of
Rational expectations and econometric the Mount Vernon cultural district in
practice, Vol. 2. University of Minnesota Baltimore. Environment and Planning C
Press, Minneapolis. 27.3, 433–50.
Markusen, A. (2006) Urban development and Ponzini, D. and U. Rossi (2010) Becoming a
the politics of creative class: evidence creative city: the entrepreneurial mayor,
from the study of artists. Environment and network politics and the promise of urban
Planning A 38.10, 1921–40. renaissance. Urban Studies 47.5, 1037–57.
Martel, F. (2010) Mainstream. Enquête sur Porter, M.E. (1989) The competitive
cette culture qui plâit à tout le monde. advantage of nations. The Free Press,
Flammarion, Paris. New York.
Mercer, C. (2006) Cultural planning for urban Porter, M.E. (2003) Building the
development and creative cities. Mimeo microeconomic foundations of prosperity:
Culturalplanning Oresund, Hillerod findings from the microeconomic
[WWW document]. URL http://www. competitiveness index. In K. Schwab, M.E.
culturalplanning-oresund.net/PDF_ Porter and P.K. Cornelius (eds.), Global
activities/maj06/Shanghai_cultural_ competitiveness report 2002–2003, World
planning_paper.pdf (accessed 2 February Economic Forum/Harvard University
2012). Press, Cambridge, MA.
Molnar, V. (2010) The cultural production of Portugali, J. (2002) The seven basic
location: reclaiming the ‘European city’ in propositions of SIRN (Synergetic
post-war Berlin. International Journal of Inter-Representation Networks). Nonlinear
Urban and Regional Research 34.2, Phenomena in Complex Systems 5.4,
281–309. 428–44.
Montgomery, J. (2005) Beware the ‘creative Portugali, J. (2006) Complexity theory as a
class’. Creativity and wealth creation link between space and place. Environment
revisited. Local Economy 20.4, 337–43. and Planning A 38.4, 647–64.
Morin, E. (1990) Introduction à la pensée Pratt, A. (2009) Urban regeneration: from the
complexe. Le Seuil, Paris. arts ‘feel good’ factor to the cultural
Nathan, M. (2005) The wrong stuff. Creative economy: a case study of Hoxton, London.
class theory, diversity and city Urban Studies 46.5/6, 1041–61.
performance. Discussion Paper No. 1, Rosser, J.B., Jr. (1994) Dynamics of emergent
Centre for Cities, London [WWW urban hierarchy. Chaos, Solitons and
document]. URL http://www. Fractals 4.4, 553–61.
centreforcities.org/assets/files/pdfs/the_ Sacco, P.L. and G. Tavano Blessi (2007)
wrong_stuff_discussion_paper_1.pdf European culture capitals and local
(accessed 2 February 2012). development strategies: comparing the
O’Mahony S. and F. Ferraro (2007) The Genoa 2004 and Lille 2004 cases. Homo
emergence of governance in an open Oeconomicus 24.1, 111–41.
source community. Academy of Sacco, P.L., G. Ferilli and S. Pedrini (2008)
Management Journal 50.5, System-wide cultural districts: an
1097–106. introduction from the Italian viewpoint.
Papaioannou, T., D. Wield and J. Chataway In S. Kagan and V. Kirchberg (eds.),
(2009) Knowledge ecologies and Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts
ecosystems? An empirically grounded and cultures, VAS Verlag, Frankfurt am
reflection on recent developments in Main.

Sacco, P.L. and G. Segre (2009) Creativity, Shirky, C. (2010) Cognitive surplus.
cultural investment and local development: Creativity and generosity in a connected
a new theoretical framework for age. Penguin, London.
endogenous growth. In U. Fratesi and L. Siljak, D.D. (1991) Decentralized control
Senn (eds.), Growth and innovation of of complex systems. Academic Press,
competitive regions, Springer, Berlin. New York.
Sacco, P.L. and G. Tavano Blessi (2009) The Stathaki, E. (2011) Serpentine Gallery
social viability of culture-led urban Pavillion 2011 by Peter Zumthor.
transformation processes: evidence from Wallpaper, 27 June 2011 [WWW
the Bicocca District, Milan. Urban Studies document]. URL http://www.wallpaper.
46.5/6, 1115–35. com/architecture/serpentine-gallery-
Sacco, P.L., G. Tavano Blessi and M. Nuccio pavilion-2011-by-peter-zumthor/5328
(2009) Cultural policies and local planning (accessed 26 August 2011).
strategies: what is the role of culture in Sternberg, R.J. and T.I. Lubart (1991) An
local sustainable development? Journal of investment theory of creativity and its
Arts Management, Law, and Society 39.1, development. Human Development 34.1,
45–64. 1–31.
Sacco, P.L., G. Ferilli and G. Tavano Blessi Tannier, C. and P. Frankhauser (2001) From
(2010) Culture-led local development: the observations to the construction of an
when does it ‘work’, and why? Paper urban dynamics simulation model: an
presented at the 2008 ACEI Conference on inductive approach. Cybergeo: European
Cultural Economics, Northeastern Journal of Geography 191 [WWW
University, Boston, 12–15 June. document]. URL http://cybergeo.revues.
Sacco, P.L., C. Conti, G. Ferilli and P.C. org/3733?file=1 (accessed 2 February
Masotti (2010) System-wide cultural 2012).
districts: the case of Faenza. Paper Tapscott, D. and A. Williams (2008)
presented at the ACEI 2010 Conference on Wikinomics. How mass collaboration
Cultural Economics. Copenhagen Business changes everything. Revised and
School, 10–12 June. updated edition, Portfolio,
Sacco, P.L., G. Ferilli, G. Tavano Blessi and New York.
M. Nuccio (forthcoming a) Culture as an Vincent, T.L. and W.J. Grantham (1997)
engine of local development processes: Nonlinear and optimal control systems.
system-wide cultural districts. I: Theory. Wiley, New York.
Growth and Change. Whyte, M. (2009) Why Richard Florida’s
Sacco, P.L., G. Ferilli, G. Tavano Blessi and honeymoon is over. The Toronto Star 27
M. Nuccio (forthcoming b) Culture as an June [WWW document]. URL http://
engine of local development processes: www.thestar.com/news/insight/article/
system-wide cultural districts. II: 656837--why-richard-florida-s-
Prototype cases. Growth and Change. honeymoon-is-over (accessed 27 July
Scott, A.J. (2000) The cultural economy of 2012).
cities. Sage, London. Wiener, N. (1954) The human use of
Scott, A.J. (2006) Creative cities: conceptual human beings: cybernetics and society.
issues and policy questions. Journal of Second edition, Houghton Mifflin,
Urban Affairs 28.1, 1–17. Boston.
Sen, A. (2000) Development as freedom. Wilson, D. and R. Keil (2008) The real
Anchor Books, New York. creative class. Social and Cultural
Sent, E.M. (1998) The evolving rationality of Geography 9.8, 841–47.
rational expectations. Cambridge Woodman, R.W., J.E. Sawyer and R.W.
University Press, Cambridge. Griffin (1993) Toward a theory of
Shirky, C. (2008) Here comes everybody. The organizational creativity. Academy
power of organizing without organization. of Management Review 18.2,
Penguin, London. 293–321.


A Conceptual Regulatory Framework For The Design & Evaluation of Complex, Participative Cultural Planning Strategies

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

A Conceptual Regulatory Framework For The Design & Evaluation of Complex, Participative Cultural Planning Strategies

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

bs_bs_banner

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research