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professional practices, conceptions and hierarchies for healthcare institutions to
rethink their role in society (KEA 2009).
In Holstebro (DK), the “Good Kitchen project” demonstrated how design could
improve social cohesion and solve health issues by redefining the challenges faced
and developing adequate solutions
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. In the wake of culture’s catalyst potential for
social innovation and response to societal challenges, the Sostenuto Project
developed innovation labs, guided by a critical view and will to change the territorial
reality. One of the laboratories, Kotor (a 13,310 inhabitant town in Montenegro),
promoted sustainable planning for the region’s heritage. It worked on improving the
functioning of local governments in the field of culture by encouraging networking
and cooperation among public institutions, private companies, NGOs and the public
in various sectors.The high level of mobility, networking and forms of open access
defining the cultural and creative sector were used there as an added value in order
to address issues like territorial diagnosis, sensitization and social mobility (Cultural
and Tourism Economics Research Unit - University of Valencia 2012).
3.2 Arts for economic development
As underlined in a previous chapter of the present study, the ability of culture and
the creative sector to drive economic development is more and more acknowledged
by European policy-makers as at the same time culture-led development is being
implemented in the field by local public authorities
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. Indeed, when looking at figures,
this sector, representing 3.3% of the European GDP (KEA 2006), outperforms the
majority of other economic sectors in Europe in terms of GDP, value added and
employment.
But more than a sector of growth, culture has proved to be a catalyst for dynamic
creative cities, a decisive element in companies and talented people’s choices of
(re)location and a driver to attract tourists. Arts-related policies have thus been
implemented in big metropolises as well as in SMSC in order to trigger local
economic development.
3.2.1 Regenerate former industrial areas
In the last decades of the 20
th
century while traditional industry was declining, causing
serious problems in terms of unemployment, social exclusion, poverty, insecurity and
dereliction or urban spaces, culture has been identified as a sector able to generate
added value, new jobs and enterprises (URBACT 2006, KEA 2006, Florida 2002). In
practice, it has shown to be an instrumental tool in local development strategies to
turn de-industrialised towns into vibrant creative places oriented towards the new
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Sharing experience Europe (SEE) platform on policy innovation design
/
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See “EU policies for culture-led development” in Section 1 :The contribution of Arts and Culture to Local
Development.
