Abstract
Intergovernmental bodies such as the European Union and UNESCO, are active in developing programmes and funding initiatives intended to support urban cultural development. Frequently, these programmes are strongly focused on city imaging, place marketing, and cultural tourism. From a consideration of recent statements and initiatives of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN), the chapter suggests that the decision to affiliate the UCCN directly with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is posing a number of challenges for the Network and its member cities, including those of Asia, not least of which is determining what sustainability might mean for a scheme which implicitly encourages inter-city competition and was formed primarily to support and showcase creativity and the cultural economy.
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Notes
- 1.
The publication of each of these documents was financed by organisations from the Peoples Republic of China. The first received funds from the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, the International Center for Creativity and Sustainable Development in Beijing, and the Beijing Industrial Design Center; funding for the second came from the Municipality of Nanjing, while the third was supported by the Yong Xin Hua Yun Cultural Industry Investment Group in Beijing. https://en.unesco.org/creative-cities/events/lab2030-creativity-sustainable-urban-development.
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Stevenson, D. (2020). Rethinking Creative Cities?: UNESCO, Sustainability, and Making Urban Cultures. In: Gu, X., Lim, M.K., O’Connor, J. (eds) Re-Imagining Creative Cities in Twenty-First Century Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46291-8_5
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