A city is often seen as creative if the arts have a visible presence – in the form of galleries, museums, public art, theater, and fairs, to name a few of the venues where art is consumed and produced. Yet, a creative city is more than just the exchange of cultural and financial capital; it is an ecosystem where many people understand themselves as creative contributors. A creative city is one whose citizens are its pulsing lifeblood.
Scholar Allen J. Scott uses the term “creative field” to describe “the interrelationships that stimulate and channel individual expressions of creativity.” This field encompasses hard elements - including artists, administrators, business people, cultural resources, institutions like universities, design centers, and museums – and soft ones –the mindset of its citizens, its atmosphere, incentives, and regulatory regimes, and other expressions of the culture, conventions, and institutions that emerge from that creative infrastructure...
