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Making Creative Cities in the Global West: The New Polarization and Ghettoization in Cleveland, USA, and Glasgow, UK

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Inequalities in Creative Cities

Abstract

“Ordinary” cities of the global west currently experience a feverish redevelopment drive to “creativize.” Amid turbulent austerity policies and global economic malaise, growth machines strive to cultivate “a creative city” that refines a previous (pre 2005) “go-entrepreneurial” surge. This chapter deepens our understanding of this drive. At my argument’s core, this creative redevelopment anchors in a new relationalness which has two parts. First, its imposing of an ecology of creativity on the city, led by glittery downtowns, interconnects with the city’s biggest scourges, ghettos, and slums. Second, growth machines serve up the concept “new global times” as the central frame to understand this redevelopment’s importance. The discussion draws on the recent redevelopment experiences of two mid-sized, “ordinary” cities in the global west, Cleveland and Glasgow.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Ghettos are now widely seen as existing in cities across the global west, including Northern Europe, Southern Europe, and Canada. Answers to this question have followed Ceri Peach’s (1996) provocative question early on “does Britain have ghettos?” While the precise emergence and intensity of deprivation in these areas has been the subject of debate, I believe that their presences have now been definitively demonstrated.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geography and Geographic Information Science Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

    David Wilson

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  1. David Wilson
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Geographisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Ulrike Gerhard

  2. Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften, Speyer, Germany

    Michael Hoelscher

  3. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA

    David Wilson

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Wilson, D. (2017). Making Creative Cities in the Global West: The New Polarization and Ghettoization in Cleveland, USA, and Glasgow, UK. In: Gerhard, U., Hoelscher, M., Wilson, D. (eds) Inequalities in Creative Cities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95115-4_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95115-4_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95114-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95115-4

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