EURA-UAA Joint Conference 2014: “City Futures III” Cities as

EURA-UAA Joint Conference 2014: “City Futures III”
Cities as strategic places and players in a globalized world
Paris-Ile de France, 18-20 June 2014
ABSTRACT PROPOSAL
Title
Towards the formation of new urban identities within creative areas.
The cases of Long Island City in New York and of Zona Tortona in Milan.
Author
Ilaria Giuliani
PhD candidate in Spatial Planning and Urban Development at Politecnico di Milano - Dipartimento di
Architettura e Studi Urbani (DAStU)
Selected sub-topic
Track - 2) Productive cities / Creative Cities
Abstract
The interest of this paper concerns the relation between the concentration of creative productive activities
and the formation of new urban identities, as the results of internal developments and external validations.
The paper is based on a wider research for a doctoral dissertation and concerns two self-generating creative
areas, Long Island City in New York, and Zona Tortona in Milan.
Urban issues such as district regeneration, identity redefinition, territorial branding and urban
competitiveness and attractiveness are in these particular cases closely bound to the production and
consumption of culture and creativity. For several decades it has been argued that the co-localization of
creative activities in a territory has important effects not only for the cultural industry itself, but also a
potential engine for the broader development of an urban district and potentially whole cities. These
empirical cases show how the gradual concentration of creative, cultural and artistic activities has been the
main trigger behind, and in some ways even beyond, the creation, implementation and promotion of new
identities in order to be attractive and appealing both for similar productive functions and related
professional staff, and more consumptive uses and commercial amenities, tied to entertainment and leisure.
Exploiting a complex paradigm of location-based promotional strategies and collective immaterial actions
fostered by the internal actors of the processes, these two deindustrialized sub-urban zones have tried to shift
from being mere sites of creative and artistic production to generating schemes of place making and
commodification, enhancing visitorship, advancing the value of products and businesses, attracting capital
and investments and becoming competitive within the urban market.
The paper will analyze these creative areas’ processes, the organizational networks, the reasons behind
immaterial strategies and agglomerations, as well as forces and motivations that drive and foster them.
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