Culture-led urban transformations and the sociology of artistic and cultural creation

Since the 80s many cities around the world have made strong investments in cultural amenities and also in policies for the promotion of cultural production. During the last decade a large literature has emerged both within the academy (urban planning, economic geography, economics, etc.) and within the professional worlds of consultancy and policy making, which attempt to explain or to elaborate toolkits in order to understand and promote this type of urban transformation. Several concepts that are related with the notion of creativity have been developed in this context: creative city, creative industries and creative class. All of them have been criticized as ambiguous and weak.

Creativity-related concepts used within the literature on culture-led urban transformation have many facets but they always make a central reference to two aspects: the artistic and cultural creativity and the cultural workers. In this sense, it would seem as if the sociological analysis of the creation dynamics, well developed within the sociology of culture and the arts, should be extremely relevant for the study of culture-led urban transformations. However, this analysis has a low incidence in this literature.

In this paper from a sociological perspective we will elaborate some analytical tools that allow developing a more precise and substantiated explanation of current culture-led urban transformations. For this purpose, first, we will critically review the literature on this subject as well as the literature on the main sociological models of analysis of artistic and intellectual creation. In this respect, we will examine in particular the work of Bourdieu, Collins, Farrell, Becker, Peterson and Menger. Finally, the above considerations will lead us to conclude some principles for the sociological analysis of culture-led urban transformation in contemporary society.