Creativity-led regeneration: towards an evaluation framework

The creative economy is considered to contribute to urban and regional development in several ways. In addition to the prevalent economic perspective on the creative sector as a generator of jobs and innovation, often it is also assumed to contribute to the regeneration of deprived neighbourhoods. Although many policy-makers act according to this assumption, relatively little is known about the effectiveness of creativity-led regeneration projects, and to which extent this regeneration can actually be attributed to the creative economy. Therefore, this paper aims to take a first step towards an evaluation framework for the results of creativity-led regeneration. Based on four case studies of creativity-led regeneration projects in the Netherlands and Germany, the paper addresses the questions
1) what different types of creativity-led regeneration are distinguished in literature,
2) to which extent the results of creativity-led regeneration can be found in practice, and
3) how these results can be assessed. The practical cases included in the paper are situated in two German and two Dutch cities.