Creating the Ordinary City: Creative Policy and the making of Place and Community in Small Cities

Creative city discourses are often extraordinary; they are stories of the creative
economy of global star cities- London, New York, Paris, or of the role of creativity in
dramatic economic rescues of the likes of Detroit. Yet as the 'ordinary city thesis' argues
more generally, we need to counter such extraordinary narratives with stories of midsize
and small, ordinary cities. Indeed, UK urban development policy has shifted in
recent years to focus more on so-called 'mid-sized cities'. Further, as the gathering
critiques of creative cities discourses demonstrate, empirical material is needed to
ground the sometimes 'outlandish' claims associated with creativity and its social and
economic possibilities. What is more, we need to critically engage with 'other' creative
cities, exploring forms of creativity - everyday, vernacular, amateur - that might sit
alongside or even critique the dominant economic 'creativity' of creative cities. This
thesis aims to explore the 'ordinary' creativities of three small-mid size- UK cities,
Coventry, Swansea and Newcastle. It does so through in-depth ethnographic work
engaging with the everyday creative spaces and diverse forms of practice in these
creative cities. The result will be a thesis that develops multi-dimensional critiques of
dominant creative city politics through a co-joining of the creative city paradigm and its
critiques; the ordinary city thesis and concerns with social justice. Specifically, it will
query how smaller, mid-sized cities (in the UK) are using and adapting creative city
policies to catalyse economic growth, how dominant creative spatial forms and tactics
migrant from larger cities to smaller ones where they are mobilised in practices of
community and place making. And further, how the everyday and vernacular creativities
of these 'ordinary' cities sit alongside and challenge dominant creative city paradigms
offering alternative means to make places and communities. For academics and nonacademic
stakeholders alike, this work will be crucial for; the on-going critiques of
creative city policy and its development, the evolving discussions of creativity and its
potential for community and place making and for an appreciation of the 'other'
creative cities and other creativities within our ordinary urban spaces.