Cultural district

A cultural district is traditionally conceived as a well-recognized, labeled, mixed-use area of a settlement in which a high concentration of cultural facilities serves as the anchor of attraction.

A debate has emerged on the concept of the cultural district, promoting potentially ground-breaking initiatives, even if most of the literature has concentrated on urban clusters, cities of art and cities of culture.

Facilities include: performance spaces, museums, galleries, artist studios, arts-related retail shops, music or media production studios, dance studios, high schools or colleges for the arts, libraries, arboretums and gardens. Because they are mixed-use developments, cultural districts incorporate other facilities such as office complexes, retail spaces and, occasionally, residential areas.

The creation of a cultural district implies collaboration between the arts and the local community. Cultural districts may be seen by local authorities as a way to revitalize the “brownfields” of the urban core: areas of abandoned buildings that encourage businesses and residents to leave the cities.

The developing theory of cultural districts increasingly conceives them as development models for local systems, where the term ‘district’ refers to supra-urban area. At supra-urban or regional level the complexity of a cultural district is even more marked than at urban level, due to potential interdependencies among a greater multitude of actors. A useful approach towards a deeper understanding can be to conceive cultural districts as complex adaptive systems. Indeed, complexity is definitely not a management fad and fashion, a mere metaphor or methodology, but a deeper perception of reality. Organizations are classically seen as purpose-driven entities with a structural form, exhibiting a certain degree of order and determinism. Such a linear top-down approach to analysis and design, however, exhibits many limitations when used for organizational settings characterized by a complex web of interdependencies. The view of a cultural district as a complex adaptive system suggests new ideas and approaches for policy-makers, designers and managers. It also opens up debate on issues of organizational design and change.

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Wikipedia