An Urban Policy Framework for Culture Oriented Economic Development: Lessons from the Netherlands

Culture is emerging as a fundamental ingredient of the economic development trajectories of contemporary cities. A typical pattern leads from cultural clustering to the enhancement, first, of specific areas, and then of the business climate of the whole urban economy. Eventually, the conditions which originated development in the first place may be altered. Sustained growth requires that they are continuously recreated, but the unconventional nature of the economic and social foundations of the cultural economy complicates these efforts, forcing most cities to move like amateurs. Hence, more insight is needed on the dynamic relationships between culture and urban development, and on their implications policy-wise. This paper is an attempt to build such knowledge, using qualitative information on four Dutch cities that have chosen culture as one of the spearheads of urban policy: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Eindhoven.