The Consequences of the Creative Class: The pursuit of creativity strategies in Australia's cities

The idea of ‘creative cities’ has gained prominence amongst urban planners andpolicymakers who often now find links between economic development and the ‘soft’attributes of cities. While definitions of the ‘creative industries’ and the ‘creative class’continue to be contested, many key urban policy actors continue to focus on developingstrategic programmes and policies to boost ‘creativity’ and economic growth. In thisarticle we review recent attempts to implement creative city ideas across five Australianstate capitals. Following the analysis of interview material derived from contact with100 key community and policymaker actors, we first develop a typology of approaches tocreative city ideas: concerted action, engagement and strategic drift. We then move onto consider how the idea of the creative city provides a simultaneously criticized yetpowerful organizing device that informs local strategies in relation to prosperity. Ouranalysis highlights a series of connected consequences around four key issues: (1) arts projects and gentrification; (2) housing affordability; (3) revanchist strands to publicspace management; and (4) relative rates of social investment. We find that the rhetoricof universal social potential accompanying creative city ideas continues to overlookthose unable to participate in this new economy, as well as those who are more activelyexcluded