Économie culturelle et urbanisation. San Francisco, produit culturel

« San Francisco as Cultural Product » Using San Francisco as a case study, this paper aims to understand the spatial dynamics of contemporary capitalism, and, in particular, how the creative economy affects urbanization. Despite a process of deindustrialization, San Francisco has been successful because it has been able to maintain a diverse economy, taking on post-industrial functions and becoming a place of technological innovation. As with other international metropolises, the city’s current economic well-being relies heavily on the development of a new sector of the economy referred to as “cultural” or “creative”, in which innovative intellectual and cultural production (whether artistic, scientific or managerial is a primary source of energy for the accumulation process. In San Francisco such intellectual and cultural products range from museums, heritage industry products, and scientific products based on academic research, to films, multimedia and Internet products. Our hypothesis is that San Francisco, relying particularly on the tourist industry, can be considered a cultural product in and of itself