1 UNESCO Creative Cities Creative industries are at the core of efforts to sustain cultural diversity. By building this network of cities that have creativity in common, UNESCO therefore seeks to facilitate and promote exchanges of best practices and know-how among them and, as a result, help spur their development via international networking.
“Nowadays, more than half of the world population lives in cities. The concept of ‘Creative Cities’ is based on the belief that culture can play an important role in urban renewal. Policy-makers are increasingly taking account of the role of creativity when planning economic policy.” (Source: UNESCO)
To date, the Network consists of 30 member cities in seven centres of creativity:
MEDIA ARTS (Lyon, France); CRAFT & FOLK ART (Aswan, Egypt; Icheon, China; Kanazawa, Japan; Santa Fe, U.S.A.); FILM (Bradford, UK; Sidney, Australia); DESIGN (Berlin, Germany; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Graz, Austria; Kobe, Japan; Montréal, Canada; Nagoya, Japan; Saint-Étienne, France; Seoul, South Korea; Shenzhen, China; Shanghai, China); GASTRONOMY (Chengdu, China; Östersund, Sweden; Popayan, Colombia); LITERATURE (Dublin, Ireland; Edinburgh, Scotland; Iowa City, U.S.A.; Melbourne, Australia); Reykjavik (Iceland) and MUSIC (Bogota, Colombia; Bologna, Italy; Seville, Spain; Glasgow, Scotland; Ghent, Belgium).
