The Rise of the Creative Class

The Creative City is now a classic and has been republished many times. It is an ambitious book and a clarion call for imaginative action in running urban life. It seeks to inspire people to think, plan and act imaginatively in the city and to get an ideas factory going that turns urban innovations into reality. Its aim is to make readers feel: ‘I can do that too’ and to spread confidence that creative and innovative solutions to urban problems are feasible however bad they may seem at first sight.

The creative city: A toolkit for urban innovators

The following bibliography is conceived as a selection of international literature on food as heritage and as a marker of identity within the huge amount of works recently produced on the topic of food. The bibliography has been produced within the “Food as heritage” project, performed at University of Bologna and coordinated by Ilaria Porciani, with a team composed by Massimo Montanari, Paolo Capuzzo, Raffaele Laudani and Marica Tolomelli. “Food as heritage” is part of a wider projec...

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Bibliography “Food as Heritage”

Culture and language

This article reviews conceptual and operational issues in defining the creative sector and its arts and cultural core. Some accounts use establishment data to measure creative industry employment, some use firm-level data, and others use occupational data. The authors examine how cultural-sector employment is conceptualized in three pioneering cultural economy studies driven by distinctive policy agendas and constituencies. Choices about which industries, firms, and occupations to include affect the resulting size and content of the cultural economy. In comparing these three studies and others, the authors show that the Boston metro's creative economy varies in size from less than 1% to 49%, although most cultural definitions range from 1% to 4%. The authors explore how policy makers might use a combination of methods to produce a richer characterization of the regional cultural economy and reflect on the relevance of good numbers to cultural policy and creative region formation.

Defining the Creative Economy: Industry and Occupational Approaches

Why have deliberations over World Heritage sites become such a volatile arena for the performance of international tensions, new political alliances and challenges to global cooperation? Across UN platforms, the failures of multilateralism are increasingly evident. We suggest that decision-making within the World Heritage Committee is no different given that politicisation is now rife throughout their deliberations. Specifically we ask how have multipolarity and fragmentation developed within United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) World Heritage programme, an organisation dedicated to peace building, tolerance and mutual understanding and international co-operation? This paper examines trends from the last decade of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee meetings, specifically the nominations of properties for inscription on the World Heritage List. Our findings suggest that the recommendations presented by UNESCO’s Advisory Bodies are increasingly at odds with the final de...

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Multilateralism and UNESCO World Heritage: decision-making, States Parties and political processes

Bertacchini E. E. and Borrione P. The geography of the Italian creative economy: the special role of the design and craft-based industries, Regional Studies. Through employment and firms' data the evolving structure of the Italian cultural economy is analysed, and diverging spatial and organizational patterns of cultural production systems in urban and regional areas are highlighted. Whilst large metropolitan areas remain the most important loci of the creative economy, craft-based sectors and creative systems of design have a tendency to locate in small and non-metropolitan centres. Based on the historical formation of manufacturing districts and the growing role of cultural production and consumption systems in urban spaces, the Italian creative economy provides an interesting case study to analyse the geographical patterns of cultural and creative industries. The previous literature on the geography of the creative and cultural economy is extended by offering through the Italian case new insights about...

The geography of the Italian creative economy: the special role of the design and craft based industries

The article explores the factors influencing the nomination and selection of heritage sites in the World Heritage List. Using country panel data and a unique dataset with individual site nominations, we provide evidence that the nomination of heritage sites to the List depends on the institutional and economic conditions of countries, and site selection is subject to rent-seeking by states and experts involved in the decision-making process. In particular, we test whether political factors, such as the involvement of countries in the World Heritage Committee, influence the inscription of national heritage sites in the List. The article contributes to the cultural economics literature by providing new insights into the political economy of conservation and promotion of heritage at the international level.

Toward a political economy of World Heritage

The purpose of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention is to protect the global merit good of cultural and natural heritage of outstanding universal value for humanity. Many observers, however, have suggested that this international organization is subject to politicization as the selection process of sites on the World Heritage List is increasingly driven by countries’ political influence and national strategic interests. This article explores this possibility quantitatively by analyzing a unique dataset containing information from the summary records of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s sessions over the 2003–2012 period. Focusing on the difference between technical experts’ recommendations and Committee final decisions on new additions to the List, our empirical analysis addresses four main theoretical questions: (i) Does the World Heritage Committee follow the advisory bodies’ recommendations for the evaluation of heritage sites? (ii) Does Committee membership or size of national delegations influence the addition of sites to the List or an upgrade of the initial technical evaluations? (iii) Is the Committee’s decision regarding the selection of World Heritage sites driven by a country’s political and economic power? (iv) Do close political and economic relationships between countries influence Committee members’ behavior? The paper contributes to Public Choice literature on international organizations by providing new evidence on the role of political and economic interests in decision making concerning global merit goods.

https://iris.unito.it/bitstream/2318/1591695/1/Public%20Choice%20Revision2%20Author.pdf

The politicization of UNESCO World Heritage decision making

The paper explores the determinants influencing the nomination and selection of sites in the World Heritage List. Using country panel data and a unique dataset with individual site nominations, we provide evidence that the nomination of heritage sites in the List depends on institutional and economic conditions of countries and that sites selection is subject to rent-seeking by states and experts involved in the decision-making process. In particular, we test whether political factors, such as the involvement of countries in the World Heritage Committee, influence the inscription of national heritage sites in the List. The paper contributes to the cultural economics literature by providing new insights on the political economy of conservation and promotion of heritage at the international level.

Enrico Bertacchini

Papers

Multilateralism and UNESCO World Heritage: decision-making, States Parties and political processes

The geography of the Italian creative economy: the special role of the design and craft based industries

Toward a political economy of World Heritage

The politicization of UNESCO World Heritage decision making

Toward a Political Economy of World Heritage