ABSTRACT
Many urban planners claim that the socio-economic change we are facing today is of another character, a new order, where the hierarchical structures of the industrial era are being replaced by many horizontal networks (Castells, 1996). This shift in paradigm evokes apprehensions about social exclusion and loss of democracy where the beginning of a one-fifth society (Simai, 1994; Martin & Schumann, 1997) might arise. Social polarization is furthermore being followed by a decrease in institutional power (Sassen, 1994). Along with this, cultural industries are looked upon as some of the key generators of future economic development. Where traditional industrial production declines, cultural production transforms the former materialistic production into a symbolic economy (Zukin, 1995).
