ABSTRACT
In the last 25 years Liverpool has suffered from deep decline, social unrest and a lack of investment, but also has experienced renewal into a knowledge economy city. A recipient of the Objective One funding and European Capital of Culture, Liverpool now boasts over 7,000 creative and digital firms with over 48,000 people employed and a £1.4 billion GVA to the local economy. Hence, Liverpool now stands out as one of the leading cultural and creative hubs outside of London with a thriving and evolving creative industry and as a European hub for video game production. Liverpool’s renaissance is predicated on creative organisations being able to capitalise on historical infrastructures and providing effective place leadership in the redevelopment of key quarters of the city, notably an area called the Baltic Triangle. The chapter zooms in precisely on place leadership or the importance for creative cluster development of having both governmental and private leaders in place who can furthermore complement each other. Drawing on empirical evidence from past and present policy documentation, creative entrepreneurs, policymakers and local co-working space managers, the research identifies key stakeholders that have shaped the creative cluster’s development. Attention is drawn to the role of place leaders and their ability to leverage path-dependencies and deliver a vision that has enabled the Baltic Tringle to become a recognised entrepreneurial creative and digital quarter in the UK within ten years. The results suggest that place leadership can play a key role in cluster policies and invite both academics, local policymakers and administrators to consider this dimension in the evaluation and development of creative clusters.
