The Creative City: Reality or Rhetoric?

The focus of this thesis is on three connected themes: Charles Landry, Comedia and the notion of the creative city. Landry and Comedia devised the notion of the creative city in the early 1990s. This thesis considers the relevance of the creative city concept to strategic planning. It questions whether the creative city is possible and whether it is capable of bringing the change Landry premises. This thesis looks at the evolution of urban cultural strategies since the 1970s. Landry’s creative city is a new urban cultural strategy with creativity as an added dimension. The meaning of creativity in the context of the individual, organisations and the city is considered. Ideas on creative milieux and the conditions for fostering such milieux are reviewed. Landry and Comedia’s work leading up to the development of the creativity city is analysed as is relevant to the conceptualisation of the idea. Landry’s methodology for the creative city as presented in his book The Creative City: A toolkit for urban innovators (2000) is critiqued. The Huddersfield Creative Town Initiative being inspired by Landry''s work is presented as a case study.