ABSTRACT
In Norway – as in many countries – cultural and creative industries are seen as a promising toolkit for urban and regional development. Cultural industries are seen as a means to achieve future economic growth and strengthen the attractiveness of cities and regions. In recent years, cultural industries have become a high-profile public policy arena. Numerous policy programmes have been established, aiming at local regeneration through stimulating innovation and facilitating creative processes within this field. But this involves many challenges, as the cultural industries operate with a more multifaceted concept of value than the one often used in such policy programmes. Creativity and innovation are social processes unfolding in complex and often fluid networks. The field of cultural and creative industries thus challenge traditional planning endeavours and enhance more creativity in policy development. In this chapter we address the dilemmas that emerge in the encounters of creativity and public management. What kinds of practices and modelling are needed to facilitate creative activities within the cultural industries? And what happens when creative processes are to be embodied into regional policy programmes? Creativity within this field implies processes where the outcome is not known. Facilitating such creativity thus means plans and programmes allowing for the unknown to appear. Investigating the attempt to facilitate creativity through public policy and programmes in the city of Tromsø, Norway, we discuss the challenges of planning for the unknown.
