ABSTRACT

As the economic and social benefits of creative industries development become increasingly visible, policymakers worldwide are working to create policy drivers to ensure that certain places become or remain “creative places.” Richard Florida’s work has become particularly influential among policymakers, as has Charles Landry’s. But as the first wave of creative industrial policy development and implementation wanes, important questions are emerging. It is by now clear that an “ideal creative place” has arisen from creative industries policy and planning literature and that this ideal place is located in inner cities. In this article, the authors shift focus away from the inner city to where most Australians live: the outer suburbs. They report on a qualitative research study into the practices of outer-suburban creative industries workers in Redcliffe, Australia, arguing that the accepted geography of creative places requires some recalibration once the material and experiential aspects of creative places are taken into account.