Oikos decembar 2020 indd

2.3. CREATIVE CITIES AND CULTURAL STRUCTURE
The venture, which was initiated for the first time in the UK in 1998 by the Department of Culture, 
Media and Sports with the aim of defining creative economies and revealing their dimensions, is 
considered a pioneering activity in this field. Although creativity and culture are defined as different 
concepts in this study, it is understood that these concepts are not easy to separate from each 
other. For example, creativity, intellectual property, symbolic meanings attributed to the products 
and contents produced are seen as common components of both creative and cultural industries. 
Earlier, in the 1980s and early 1990s, some authors pointed out that cultural industries are the 
main drivers of urban renewal and change (Landry and Bianchhini, 1995; Leadbeater and Oakley, 
1999; Myerscough, 1988). However, the popularization of creative industries in the wider context 
and as a driver for local and regional development began with Richard Florida’s work on the role 
of creativity in regional and urban economic development (Florida, 2002). Views in which Florida 
draws attention to the growth rate of the creative sectors and the driving role they play in economic 
growth have attracted increasing attention in the literature and have started being widely included 
lately in the formulation of public policies by many countries (Cunningham, 2001). 
Country settlements are generally built on two foundations of rural and urban culture. While the 
rural areas produce the basic consumer goods needed by city life, the urban population produces 
industrial products that are not essential for sustaining people’s lives, but the whole society can 
consume. The basic raw material of most of these products is again provided by the rural areas. This 
social and economic organization form that emerged with the industrial mode of production and 
the social and economic organization of creative industries differ from each other. It is suggested 
in the literature that big cities constitute the core of creative economies (Gordon and Gibson, 2009; 
Dovey and Sandercock, 2002). Because while rural culture continues its activities focused on daily 

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life, city culture focuses on realizing creative products, services and contents that will contribute 
to capitalist fund accumulation and create new values continuously. The result is, in big cities 
where there is a competitive environment, the creative industries are also developed. However, the 
creative class, which is accepted as the driving force of the creative economy created by big cities, is 
criticized as one of the negativities of creative economies, in that it causes an increase in social and 
cultural exclusion with the new style of culture and settlements it creates in cities (Macleod, 2002; 
Hubbard, 2004; Miles, 2005; Peck, 2005; Yeoh, 2005). In other words, it is claimed that the cultural 
and sociological change that creative economies will bring about in cities will create a new social 
layer, and in a sense will increase the formation of «new» noble classes (Gibson and Homan, 2004). 
According to the Marxist understanding, which looks at the issue from a class perspective, while 
the middle and upper layers of the creative classes formed due to creative economies benefit from 
activities related to creativity, the lower classes are exposed to social exclusion by being pushed out 
from the region (Peck, 2005). 
In addition to negative views, creative cities add value to urban culture and socio-economic life 
with their new features, by revealing spaces where creative people can integrate and communicate 
with the rest of society. In this way, it mediates urban economic revival and growth. This mediation 
is provided by the potential contributions of certain cultural events, including new information 
technologies, digital media (cinema, music, film, TV series). Creative industries and the creative 
human profile add excitement to cities with new neighborhood relations, new cultural diversity; 
transform the city into a center of creative appeal and attract people from different cultures. As 
can be understood from the literature, while creative economies present new urban development 
dreams to society, on the one hand, they also affect some segments of the society negatively.
Urban architecture, settlements, neighborhoods, cultural living areas formed by the industrial 
production style, are changing by livening up through “creative designs and contents” and can 
convert cities into new centers of attraction and appeal by transforming them into places that 
generate new value. Change can bring exclusion of low-income segments of society and push them 
out of these regions (Hansen, Anderson, and Clark, 2001; MacLeod, 2002). At the same time, the 
real estate and housing areas in these regions add the value created by the creative industries to 
their own structure, thereby increasing value, especially in the real estate sector. The theater stages 
created by the creative culture, cinema, museums, historical places and squares, cafes, walking 
areas, parks, landscape and architecture add vitality to the city’s appearance, as well as creating 
creative cities thanks to new brands. In the countryside, on the other hand, areas such as organic 
agriculture, natural habitats, national parks become brands, and such creative activities also form 
the basis of creative rural culture. In this context, the positive and negative effects that creative 
economies may bring to urban life, rural areas and socio-cultural structure of society should be 
considered as important factors to be taken into account in policies to be implemented to develop 
and encourage creative sectors.