Engineering the Northern Bohemian: Local Cultural Policies and Governance in the Creative City Era

Abstract

This paper addresses the transformations of local cultural governance following the popularisation of the creative city thesis. While the economic impact of the arts in urban settings has been a topic of great interest in recent years and an amply documented theme, little is known about the consequence of such development knowledge and practice on the local cultural policy arena where it takes roots. Moreover, given the popularity and the enthusiasm for such strategies within municipal governments, we have seen a growing tendency to implement the creative city strategy and to formulate cultural policies that follow it in rural and smaller communities which are quite different from the more extensively documented urban and metropolitan cases. Through case studies of three cities in Northern Ontario (Canada), we can identify a number of changes in cultural governance and policy logics. Overall, the creative city narrative appears to be detrimental to typical arts advocacy in smaller communities since it leads to the domestication of the arts.

Notes

Named after its author David Silcox, the report was an advocacy piece suggesting the creation of arms-length funding for Torontonian artists. David Silcox is also known for his activism in the Canadian Conference for the Arts.

At the time (1986–87), the tools for policy development were mostly aiming at cultural development. Consequently, culture was not envisioned horizontally—as an instrument that could serve other purposes.