Creativity has been conceived as the currency for economic growth for many re-searchers, urban planners and policy makers. Countries from Sweden to Singapore have devised strategies to release the creativity in the people. The so-called creative industries have brought together different businesses, ranging from computer games to thea-tre plays, onto a common platform for spurring economic growth.
The creative industries are considered central to a country’s innovation system. There are three ways that the creative industries contribute to the whole economy.
One, the creative industries is a major source of innovative ideas and contributes to an economy’s innovative potential and the generation of new products and services.
Two, creative industries offer services which are inputs to innovative activities of other enterprises and organizations.
Three, creative industries are intensive users of technology and demand altera-tions and new developments of technology, spurring innovation impulses to tech-nology producers.
The promotion of the creative industries is also a political project. Governments stand behind the vision, leading to society being socially and economically engi-neered to bring about the creative society. Regulations must be shaped to encour-age the spurts and flows of creativity in the populace. Members of society must be convinced that the future lies in editing videos on a computer screen rather than putting together products along an assembly line, for instance.
The rhetoric of economic development from creativity is seductive to the pub-lic. It assumes a “democracy of involvement” (Neelands & Choe 2010: 288). Considering that most people consider themselves capable of finding solutions in their everyday life and they have ideas and opinions on issues, the discourse of creativity and the creative industries encourages everyone to aspire and become more self-directed in their economic participation.
Creativity is seen to be univer-sal and everyone – privileged or not – can take a shot at becoming economically successful by being creative.
The creative industries harness creativity and this means that creativity is as-sumed as manageable and productive.
The idea that outcomes of creativity can be unpredictable and destructive has been replaced by the view that creativity can be harnessed and controlled. But creativity need not be an asset and can be rather destructive. Some art works, for instance, are known to be annoying or even destabilizing (e.g. graffiti as street art..).
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