From the creative to the vital city (original) (raw)

Creativity' in cities and regions is associated with 'economies of agglomeration'. It is presumed that density and proximity is what matters in making places productive in economic and cultural terms. The paradigm is by no means watertight however: we see 'creative cities' that are not dense, clusters of creative firms who do not apparently talk to each other, and a lack of a dynamic dimension in the 'density and distance' basis of the model. We suggest an alternative posed in a relational way of thinking looking at issues of hierarchy and scale in relation to networks, showing how processes of the coherent construction of the city in different scales produce the key structures formative of central place and centrality.