THE GOVERNANCE GAP: Local Policy Regimes for the Creative Industries in Comparative Perspective

The governance of creative industries at sub-national level has emerged as one of the most analytically contested and practically consequential questions in contemporary urban studies and cultural policy research. Whereas national governments across Europe and beyond have, since the late 1990s, developed increasingly elaborate macroeconomic strategies in support of creative sector development, the translation of such strategic ambitions into coherent and effective municipal action has remained profoundly uneven, insufficiently theorised, and poorly documented. This article addresses that lacuna through a comparative qualitative analysis of three contrasting local governance contexts: the London Boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets — two East London councils with markedly different orientations towards creative economy policy — and the municipality of Guimarães in northern Portugal, a mid-sized historically endowed city navigating the aftermath of its designation as European Capital of Culture 2012.