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Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities
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Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Tourism, Culture, and Heritage".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 March 2021) | Viewed by 24178

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Valentina Montalto

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Via E. Fermi, 2749, 21027 Ispra, Italy
Interests: cultural statistics; cultural indicators; cultural economics and policy; small and medium-sized cities; sustainable tourism; urban strategies
Prof. Dr. Pier Luigi Sacco

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Department of Humanities, IULM University Milan, Via Carlo Bo, 1, 20143 Milano, Italy
2. RLL Department, Harvard University Cambridge MA, Boylston Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
3. FBK-IRVAPP, Via S. Croce 77, 38122 Trento, Italy
Interests: cultural economics and policy; behavioral science and public policy; evolutionary game theory and social behavior; social cognition; social neuroscience and economics; computational social sciences
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Michaela Saisana

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Via E. Fermi, 2749, 21027 Ispra, Italy
Interests: composite indicators; scoreboards and monitoring tools to feed into a wide range of policy fields (social rights, fairness, innovation, competitiveness, enterprises and firms, state aid, employment, culture and creativity, cohesion and sustainable development …)

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor has been developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission to help policy makers identify local strengths and opportunities and benchmark their cities against similar urban centres. The Monitor offers a fully accessible database of 29 carefully selected indicators covering 190 cities in Europe. The analysis shows the polycentric pattern of Europe’s cultural assets, which offers local authorities the opportunity to design diverse and context-specific strategies. In particular, medium-sized cities appear to have, on average, more cultural facilities per inhabitant than larger cities. The paper presenting these findings is among the top social media articles in 2019–20.

The last two decades have recorded a massive increase of interest in culture as a major resource for sustainable development. Nevertheless, the practical implementation of culture-led strategies remains a challenge. The varied impacts of culture are indeed difficult to monitor, as they cover many different domains of the economy, society and individuals’ lives. While the Monitor succeeds in breaking from a narrow economic perspective of culture by including, for instance, indicators of cultural participation, diversity and openness, its full potential to address relevant policy research questions is yet to be explored.

This Special Issue welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions that aim to provide deeper insight in all aspects of culture and sustainable development in cities, e.g., inclusiveness, reduced inequalities, green growth/tourism and health and wellbeing. Empirical analyses showing the relationship between the Cultural and Creative Cities’ performance and sustainability goals/green indicators will be particularly appreciated. Applications of the Cultural and Creative Cities model to other geographical contexts or units are also welcome. Theoretical contributions with a sound conceptual basis on the future scope of the Monitor, with a focus on cultural sustainability metrics, are of interest as well.

Dr. Valentina Montalto
Prof. Dr. Pier Luigi Sacco
Dr. Michaela Saisana
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • culture and environmental sustainability
  • culture and green growth
  • culture and social cohesion
  • culture and social inclusion
  • culture and health and wellbeing
  • culture and sustainable tourism
  • creative and sustainable cities

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

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7 pages, 209 KiB  
Editorial
Cultural, Creative, and Sustainable Cities: Assessing Progress and Measurement Perspectives
by Valentina Montalto, Pier Luigi Sacco and Michaela Saisana
Sustainability 2022, 14(7), 4246; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14074246 - 02 Apr 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2318
Abstract
The link between culture and sustainable development has become a major research topic in the past few years. [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

23 pages, 2664 KiB  
Article
Geographies of Flowers and Geographies of Flower Power
by Annie Tubadji and Valentina Montalto
Sustainability 2021, 13(24), 13712; https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413712 - 12 Dec 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2444
Abstract
The world is changing under the pressure of environmental and health crises, and in this context, location choice and political choice become of even more poignant importance. Following a Culture-Based Development (CBD) stand, our paper highlights the link between political voting and the [...] Read more.
The world is changing under the pressure of environmental and health crises, and in this context, location choice and political choice become of even more poignant importance. Following a Culture-Based Development (CBD) stand, our paper highlights the link between political voting and the cultural and ecological valuation of a place. We start from the premise that the individual utility functions of the urban inhabitant and the urban voter coincide, since they both express the citizen’s satisfaction with the life in a place. We suggest that the unified citizen’s utility function is driven by a trade-off between the availability of virtual and physical spaces for interaction. We expect that this trade-off can lead to dissatisfaction with the place and consequent political discontent if the incumbents’ access to green areas and artistic environment in a place is simultaneously hampered for a long time. Our operational hypothesis is that the political sensitivity of citizens is related to the local availability of green areas (geographies of flowers) and cultural capital endowments (geographies of flower power). Using individual-level data from the WVS from the period close before the pandemic—2017–2020, we test empirically this hypothesis. We use as an outcome of interest the individual propensity to active political behaviour. We explain this propensity through the geographies of flowers (i.e., green areas) and geographies of flower power (i.e., cultural and creative industries). We compare the effects for urban and for rural areas. We find strong dependence of politically proactive behaviour on the geographies of flowers and geographies of flower power, with explicit prominence in urban areas. We find a more pronounced effect of these two geographies on the utility function of incumbent than migrant residents. We also crosscheck empirically the relationship of this CBD mechanism on an aggregate level, using data from the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor. The findings confirm the Schelling magnifying effect of micro preferences on a macro level. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities)
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18 pages, 5349 KiB  
Article
Bringing Back in the Spatial Dimension in the Assessment of Cultural and Creative Industries and Its Relationship with a City’s Sustainability: The Case of Milan
by Aura Bertoni, Paola Dubini and Alberto Monti
Sustainability 2021, 13(19), 10878; https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910878 - 30 Sep 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2192
Abstract
The Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM) is a valuable tool to measure and compare European cities’ cultural and creative vitality. It addresses three dimensions: the presence of cultural venues and facilities (i.e., Cultural Vibrancy); the jobs and innovations connected to the so-called [...] Read more.
The Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM) is a valuable tool to measure and compare European cities’ cultural and creative vitality. It addresses three dimensions: the presence of cultural venues and facilities (i.e., Cultural Vibrancy); the jobs and innovations connected to the so-called creative industries (i.e., the Creative Economy); and the enabling conditions for culture and creativity diffusion: human capital, diversity, trust and openness, international accessibility, and connectivity (i.e., an Enabling Environment). Comparing and ranking cities on these different dimensions offer policymakers the possibility of developing strategies related to their development (Montalto et al. 2019). However, as is recognized in the report presenting the CCCM, significant methodological limitations exist. They are related to both the tool and the potential behavioral implications it generates (JRC-OECD Handbook, 2008) and to the difficulties with addressing a multifaceted phenomenon with scant data, which offer limited opportunities to adequately measure cultural and creative cities (Van Puyenbroeck et al. 2021). In this paper, we integrate the CCCM framework to propose a spatially contextualized application at the city level as a tool to support policymakers’ understanding of the potential role of cultural and creative organizations in city development (Soini and Dessein, 2016). We, therefore, build our arguments on a recent stream of research showing the importance of the spatial dimension to understand the relevance of cultural and creative industries within a context and inform decision-makers (Boal-San Miguel and Herrero-Prieto, 2020). This spatial dimension is even more important at the city level, where public, private, and non-profit organizations interact to execute culture-led policies (Bonet and Négrier, 2018). In this case, the location of specific organizations may be critical in offering opportunities at the neighborhood level, paving the way to space-driven local level policies (e.g., the 15 min walking strategy; see e.g., Pisano, 2020). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities)
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12 pages, 5988 KiB  
Article
Urban Nature: Does Green Infrastructure Relate to the Cultural and Creative Vitality of European Cities?
by Vishal Kumar and Aude Vuilliomenet
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 8052; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13148052 - 19 Jul 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3238
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic severely upended cultural and creative production, consumption, and interactions in cities. Open green spaces, parks, forests, and gardens—green infrastructure—were instead utilized by citizens as a substitute for stimulating social interactions, sustainable tourism, and green growth. (1) The purpose of this [...] Read more.
The COVID-19 pandemic severely upended cultural and creative production, consumption, and interactions in cities. Open green spaces, parks, forests, and gardens—green infrastructure—were instead utilized by citizens as a substitute for stimulating social interactions, sustainable tourism, and green growth. (1) The purpose of this research is to understand whether the availability of green infrastructure relates to the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM) benchmarking project developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission performance. Does new evidence suggest revising the CCCM conceptual framework and related urban policies, especially in relation to the EU Green Deal? (2) Data from OpenStreetMap was used to count the amount of green infrastructure in 184 European Cities covered by the CCM and was then correlated with the sub-indices of the CCCM. (3) We found a moderately positive correlation of green infrastructure with the cultural vibrancy of a city and a weak positive correlation with the enabling environment of a city. (4) In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU Green Deal and several other policy initiatives aimed at urban greening, we recommend that the CCCM include an Urban Nature sub-index as one of the performance indicators of the CCCM. An Urban Nature sub-index will broaden the goal of the CCCM by providing policymakers with a better understanding of actions and strategies to allow culture to contribute to social inclusion and green growth strategies in cities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities)
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29 pages, 3726 KiB  
Article
Cultural Dynamism and Business Vitality in Medium-Sized Cities—Evidence and Proposals for Sustainable Development
by Ana Isabel Escalona-Orcao, Belén Sánchez-Valverde García, Mª Cruz Navarro-Pérez, Mariola Pinillos-García and Alberto Conejos-Sevillano
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7325; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137325 - 30 Jun 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2126
Abstract
This work uses tools recently designed to conduct analyses and proposals around the cultural development of medium-sized cities. The Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor model, or CCCM, is first applied to the 81 cities in Spain with between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. We [...] Read more.
This work uses tools recently designed to conduct analyses and proposals around the cultural development of medium-sized cities. The Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor model, or CCCM, is first applied to the 81 cities in Spain with between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants. We also refer to the UNESCO Culture/2030 Indicators, specifically indicator 8 (Cultural companies), to investigate whether cultural dynamism is related to business vitality in those cities. Our observation of the 29 CCCM indicators and the C3 index, which synthesizes cultural performance, is explained, and these data are complemented with cultural business data (on assets, benefits, and jobs) from a sample of 13,204 firms. The C3 index values reveal significant differences in the cultural and creative performance of the selected cities according to their location (metropolitan or non-metropolitan) and their administrative rank. Moreover, when comparing the C3 index with the indicators on business activity, evidence indicates a clear positive relationship between cultural dynamism and firm vitality. These results support the contribution of culture to the sustainable development of medium-sized Spanish cities and further establish the suitability of the tools used to assist cities in designing appropriate cultural policies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities)
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23 pages, 1235 KiB  
Article
Cultural and Creative Cities and Regional Economic Efficiency: Context Conditions as Catalyzers of Cultural Vibrancy and Creative Economy
by Silvia Cerisola and Elisa Panzera
Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7150; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137150 - 25 Jun 2021
Cited by 30 | Viewed by 5101
Abstract
Following the hype that has been given to culture and creativity as triggers and enhancers of local economic performance in the last 20 years, this work originally contributes to the literature with the objective of assessing the impact of cultural and creative cities [...] Read more.
Following the hype that has been given to culture and creativity as triggers and enhancers of local economic performance in the last 20 years, this work originally contributes to the literature with the objective of assessing the impact of cultural and creative cities (CCCs) on the economic output of their regions. In this sense, the cultural and creative character of cities is considered a strategic strength and opportunity that can spillover, favoring the economic system of the entire regions in which the cities are located. Through an innovative methodology that exploits a regional production function estimated by a panel fixed effects model, the effect of cities’ cultural vibrancy and creative economy on the output of their regions is econometrically explored. The data source is the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor (CCCM) provided by the JRC, which also allows the investigation of the possible role played by the enabling environment in catalyzing the action of cultural vibrancy and creative economy. The results are thoroughly examined: especially through cultural vibrancy, CCCs strategically support the output of their region. This is particularly the case when local context conditions—such as human capital and education, openness, tolerance and trust, and quality of governance—catalyze their effect. Overall, CCCs contribute to feeding a long-term self-supporting system, interpreted according to a holistic conception that includes economic, social, cultural, and environmental domains. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities)
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17 pages, 320 KiB  
Article
Exploring Creative Tourism Based on the Cultural and Creative Cities (C3) Index and Using Bootstrap Confidence Intervals
by Mercedes Mareque, Elena de Prada Creo and Marcos Álvarez-Díaz
Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 5145; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095145 - 04 May 2021
Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2808
Abstract
Creative tourism is a novel segment of the tourism market that may turn into a great opportunity for small cities to attract visitors. Thus, it can be a possible economic and social driver for local development. Despite its potentiality, not much empirical research [...] Read more.
Creative tourism is a novel segment of the tourism market that may turn into a great opportunity for small cities to attract visitors. Thus, it can be a possible economic and social driver for local development. Despite its potentiality, not much empirical research has been conducted to explore the specific strengths and weaknesses of developing creative tourism in small cities, probably due to the lack of reliable data. Our study aims to fill this gap by using the C3 Index, a composite indicator developed by the Joint Research Center-European Commission, as the data source, and the bootstrap method as a statistical tool to detect significant differences between small and large cities. Our findings reveal that the smallest cities show positive features to foster creative tourism (e.g., they have at least as good cultural infrastructures and cultural participation as the largest cities). However, in some other aspects, small cities still have room to improve (e.g., improvements in local and international connections or further development of the cultural and creative sector). Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cultural, Creative and Sustainable Cities)
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