Creativity, clusters and fine-grain networks: an investigation of culture-led urban regeneration in Australia and China

The significance of creative industry clusters is well recognised in culture-led urban regeneration and in the development of cultural quarters over the last twenty years. The benefits of establishing and supporting these clusters are evident, ranging from the achievement of economic return to the improvement of social and environmental conditions. This urban phenomenon is also seen as the key drive behind the prevalence of a ‘creative economy’ and the cradle for the development of creative industries. In fact, the formation of creative clusters largely draws upon the wider urban ecosystem that supplies resources, energy and inspiration. The interrelationship between creative clusters and wider urban, national and international networks has been examined in recent literature (Bain 2013; Gibson et al. 2012; Brennan-Horley and Gibson 2009; Brennan-Horley et al. 2010). These studies also question the geographical confinement of a local cluster, and underscore the socio-technical operation of clusters. The traditional view of urban planning is that clusters are confined to a geographical boundary and are only connected by ‘hard infrastructure’, the physical components of interrelated systems. This perspective seems to be challenged by the concept of ‘soft infrastructure’ that leads to the superposition of sophisticated communications, programs and activities over the physical network. In order to dissolve the spatial limitation, it is crucial to understand the underlying forces that generate creativity and urban culture. In parallel with an ARC Linkage project this research scrutinises the concept of ‘soft infrastructure’ and its implications for creative clusters in Australian and Chinese cities. The investigation has been carried out to find out the parameters that are crucial to the fine grain activities of creative clusters, including learning and innovation effects, cross-trading, skills sharing, place-making and so on. In this thesis I explore the question of how these underlying parameters can be conceptualised, evaluated, planned, designed and facilitated. Extensive field research has been conducted on creative clusters in Australian and Chinese cities, followed by an in-depth comparative analysis of selected cases in Sydney and Shenzhen, China. The qualitative and quantitative examination is based on a comprehensive understanding of regional, city and local conditions with a consideration of the interrelationship between the clusters and the broader creative ecosystem. In particular, this research investigates the application of new communication technology in both cities and its influence on the formation of creative clusters, fine grain entrepreneurships and urban networks. It aims to generate a set of sustainable models for culture-led urban regeneration. From what I have found in Surry Hills, the rationales for promoting the suburb as a growing creative hub are not evident in the maps and statistics provided by the City of Sydney. The elements that make up Surry Hills as a creative milieu always have a certain relation to the sensory feeling of the local urban qualities, such as architectural text, memories and communal sense, which have been gradually damaged by the gentrification process. Because of the disappearance of local cultural producers, its ‘funky’ status turns to rely on the popularity of the area’s nightclubs, venues, design stores and recent emergence of small bars that attract cultural tourists and nonlocal consumers. Therefore, the provision of soft infrastructure and new public interventions for small-scale art and cultural practices, such as new workspaces and innovative urban policies at all governmental levels, is vital to the sustainability of cultural vibrancy in the area and urban creative regeneration in the similar suburbs across the metropolitan area. Compared to other Chinese cities, open atmosphere and tolerance for innovative ideas in Shenzhen offers opportunities to small-scale creative businesses. The city’s unique developmental path and its youthful, entrepreneurial orientation provides a context in which the local government and developer rethink the ways that OCT-LOFT operates. The new urban dynamics of small and medium creative activities largely contributes to the success of OCT-LOFT. However, this creative cluster is only one small part of a larger development and the generation of a creative ‘buzz’ feeds directly into the surrounding land value. This model may be detrimental to the area’s spatial and social connections with any wider urban communities and causes a perceived isolation. (O’Connor and Liu 2014) In order to apply this model outside this specific circumstance, there is also a need for an open and inclusive cooperation framework in urban policies to adopt creative regeneration discourses.