Creative Multiplicities

Abstract

There is now a huge urban studies literature on the rise of the creative economy, creative classes and the clustering of creative industries, both in particular cities and in neighbourhoods within those cities. While most of th is discourse has been focused at the geographic scale of inter-city competition, it has long been clear that creative industries do not locate randomly within cities and are sensitive to characteristics of 'place' at the neighbourhood scale. While the importance of quality of place to creative clustering is repeatedly acknowledged, the associated micro-spatialities and morphologies remain under-researched. This chapter will first summarise the existing literature on creative clustering before exploring the morphological, functional and socioeconomic mixes associated with key creative clusters in two Australian cities.