The Creation of Experience Spaces:in the context of small cities

The aim of the paper is to investigate the recent construction of new cultural experience spaces in Denmark through decentralized levels of governance, with periphery as a relational concept. Place quality and quality of life is in focus in the development of localities and the character of a place is increasingly sought used as an instrument for attracting people and economy. In the context of Danish cultural policy and planning, the governmental strategy of creating Culture Regions as a means to the goal of creating better cultural offers for people in the region; has led to a new spatial order in the area of culture. Culture Regions can be observed as a strategy to try to outbalance the differences in the geographical development in the field of culture.The theoretical point of departure will be finding its roots in spatial thoughts. Scale-space approach will be setting the scene for the theoretical discussions, mainly inspired by Harvey (2009), Brenner (2004) and Mackinnon (2010), to put in to context the relations between national – regional – municipal, in the light of relational space (Massey, 2005) and the quality of place (Healey, 2010). The third space of Soja (1996) will be addressed as a central theory in this paper, naturally with Lefebvre (1991[1974]) references. Also, in relation Tuan’s (1977) thoughts about space, place and experiences. Thus entailing a socio-spatial dialectic in a multi-scalar relational framework, to understand how people and places interact in a co-creating production of imaginaries – a primary source for the experience economy. This relational approach to development and to periphery can be seen for example in different niche development projects - linking to discussions on the scale of development and the scale of periphery.The empirical analysis will be conducted in the intersection field of collaboration between the Ministry of Culture and four municipalities in East Jutland. The analysis will evolve around how cultural experience spaces are created for the citizens to enjoy.This paper will contribute with knowledge about the creation of experiences in the common space of the four municipalities? Are these spaces increasing the opportunities for quality, cultural experiences? What are the challenges, obstacles and problems in that regard