ABSTRACT
This section briefly elaborates on the elements of a comprehensive policy approach to
narrow the gap between academic discussion and policy practice. It entails three steps,
with a Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis confrontation type
at its heart. The discussion in Section 2 provides the basis in two ways. First, a number
of observations will be derived that constitute the conceptual starting points of our
approach:
(1) the creative city is taken as a whole rather than as separate production and consump-
tion milieus;
(2) the policy perspective is integrative rather than sectorial, including all relevant policy
fields;
(3) policy is city-specific, building “organically” on what is already there.
