- Creative Economy in the Developing World-The Developed & Developing City    213 kb by    Garewal, Rameeta | garewal_r@yahoo.com    Short Outline Globalization has opened economic and social prospects for developing countries, while imposing tremendous pressures of crossing the economic divide that exists between the developed and developing world. What effect can a creative economy have on the regeneration of urban centers and will it reinforce diverse local economies? Abstract “much remains to be done to really harness the so-far unexploited potential of creativity for the benefit of urban populations”, UNESCO Cities throughout India are emerging as centers of technology, manufacturing, media, tourism and education. These cities are rapidly making their way towards becoming an integral part of the global business community. With local economies opening to globalization, cities with infrastructure & pool of skilled and semi-skilled labor have steadily evolved as employment centers. However, these ‘new’ urban societies lack a multi-faceted economy and are dependent on a single industry attracted by its local resources. On one hand are those cities developing as new urban centers, and on the other are established employment and trade centers. Cities like Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta & Madras have long been urban magnets and responsible for rural-urban migration. While paving the way for such migration patterns, these burgeoning metropolis’ suffer from resulting overpopulation and unemployment and lack of proper education of migrants raising the ratio of low-income population. An underlying phenomenon experienced by urban centers is the evolution of dichotomous economies where, an ‘informal’ economic & social sector is created by low-income groups seeking alternative means to access services that government policies fail to provide. The result is a duplication of services and networks. As in the case of The Huddersfield Creative Town Initiative, a creative economy can harness the potential of available resources by encouraging networking & shared learning, gradually incorporating the ‘informal’ into the formal sector. Developed cities like Bombay or developing cities like Bangalore (Asia’s Silicon Valley) are thus equally in need of urban regeneration through culture. Be it with the objective of revival, or, to generate a diverse economy, exploring the benefits of creative economy may counter economic decline in these urban centers. Keywords Unemployment, Education, Culture, regeneration Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2005: Making Spaces for the Creative Economy   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper