Creative Urban Regeneration between Innovation, Identity and Sustainability

Competitive cities are currently working on how to improve the interaction between culture, and regeneration building, economic development and social renewal in order to achieve more comprehensive development. It is a question not only of boosting the economies of culture but also producing new economies, starting from cultural capital, understood as an element of the maximum expression of place identity and forming a system together with other urban capital. In this context, new alternative strategies and urban policies should be considered. Indeed, creativity is found not only in the typical characteristics of the entrepreneurial spirit but also in forms such as the dissemination of behaviour that is favourable to cultural exchange as well as the enhancement of lifestyle diversity. The most mature experiences of creative cities show us two types of creative clusters. The first are cultural clusters, which are created around activities such as fine arts, music, cinema, architecture and design, and whose initiation is encouraged and planned by local administration. The second are clusters of events, whose development stems from the organization of great events or different kinds of recreational and cultural manifestations. Starting from these premises, this study aims to investigate the concept of the creative city: who are the drivers and what are the factors conditioning creativity in cities, and how do they stimulate sustainable urban regeneration and innovation. In the framework of the clusters of events, one illustrates the case study of the Milla Digital project in Zaragoza (Spain), in which place-identity and creativity play a fundamental role. The urban transformation offered by Expo 2008 is for Zaragoza the driving force for planning and producing new and sustainable social, cultural and economic change for the city's image.