ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the phenomena of the Creative Economy and creative cities. It describes how the often embrace extractive or exploitive forms of economic development, emulating industrial era approaches that attempt to attract the “big fish,” as American economic development authority Stuart Rosenfeld. The chapter argues that approaches based in nurturing vernacular creativity—found among the more abundant “schools of small fish”—can build more inclusive and sustainable economies from within. City planners, city leaders, and the cultural sector can choose approaches that foster more equitable and sustainable development of local creative economies. Creative Economy proponents within the nonprofit cultural sector saw this broader definition as a way to elevate the significance of creative people and institutions and to gain greater favor from the powers-that-be in order to garner financial support for the sector. The buzz around the creative city, creative class, Creative Economy, and creative placemaking has been generally embraced in city planning and in much of the cultural sector.
