ARTICLE: Looking Back on the Ideas and Resources We Shared from Across the Field
From street art to gendered urban archives and arts-led investment strategies, today’s cultural initiatives demonstrate how creativity is reshaping the fabric of cities with great power. While we are gearing up behind the scenes to share our own research outputs soon, STARTUP has shared recommended readings and resources across our platforms last year, highlight the growing influence of cultural practice, creative intervention, and community-led placemaking in redefining urban regeneration for the twenty-first century. This recap provides a concise overview of all eight selected pieces, concluding with a reflective discussion that highlights key insights and their relevance to STARTUP’s mission.
The STARTUP project explores how cultural heritage and the cultural and creative industries can support sustainable, inclusive urban transitions, in line with the New European Bauhaus vision. Using a bottom-up, place-based placemaking approach, it tests small-scale cultural interventions and draws on cultural mapping and case studies to understand their social, economic, and environmental impacts. Ultimately, the project’s goal is to develop a European Creative Placemaking Framework that helps local cultural actors and authorities harness their unique cultural assets to strengthen community identity, cohesion, and sustainable development.
Each piece is summarised in turn, followed by a reflective discussion on working towards a European Creative Placemaking Future. In line with STARTUP’s mission and the structure of this summary, the next step is to delve deeper into the four core themes. The first of these concerns culture-driven urban regeneration and policy.
INTRODUCTION: THE RISE AND RISE OF CULTURE-LED URBAN REGENERATION (Miles & Paddison, 2005)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43197300
In 2005, Miles and Paddison wrote about the rise and rise of culture-led urban regeneration, questioning its rapid growth and increasing prominence in urban policy. They question whether we truly understand the complex impacts of cultural investment on cities, and to what extent such decisions are based on informed analysis. Their discussion is marked by scepticism, highlighting the speed of this expansion, the surrounding hype, and the lack of supporting evidence, which together prompt a call for more critical scrutiny.
In other words, while cities were promoted as key drivers of economic change, with culture central to this process through UK government agendas such as the Core Cities initiative and ideas like Chris Smith’s Creative Britain (2000, cited in Miles & Paddison, 2005), Miles and Paddison (2005) urge caution against overstating the impact of cultural investment given its limited evidential basis. To properly assess its value, they emphasise the importance of a sense of place, connection, cultural citizenship, and sustainability, and advocate for a careful evaluation of (1) the durable effects of cultural regeneration and (2) a more balanced approach between economic, social, and cultural values.
Ultimately, a valuable point of reflection in this article, is that, for culture to be successful in cultural planning, it must have a specific meaning, rather than expecting it to be all-encompassing. Treating culture as a one-size-fits-all solution risks masking political assumptions and overestimating its regenerative potential.
WORLD CITIES CULTURE REPORT 5th Edition (World Cities Forum, 2025)
The World Cities Culture (WCC) Report 5th Edition positions culture not as a symbolic add-on, but as essential urban infrastructure for sustainable development. Drawing on data and case studies from 45 global cities representing over 260 million people, the report introduces a new Data Explorer and a comprehensive cultural data framework developed with the OECD. Together, these tools support more evidence-based cultural policymaking by measuring cultural provision, participation, and impact. Across themes such as climate action, creative workspaces, night-time economies, health and wellbeing, technology, and public space, the report argues that culture is a golden thread connecting economic growth, social justice, and urban resilience. By embedding culture into every aspect of city life, cities can move from performative cultural gestures toward long-term, measurable outcomes.
The report also stands as a call for collaboration and shared learning between cities, echoing UNESCO’s long-standing advocacy for culture as a fundamental pillar of sustainable development. Contributors emphasize that cities achieve more when they work together, sharing data, policy insight, and practical examples, to address shared challenges from inequality to climate change. Framed around people, place, and planet, the report highlights how cultural policy can expand access and participation, protect and root creative spaces in communities, and support environmentally sustainable futures. Ultimately, this edition of the World Cities Culture Report offers a blueprint for integrating culture into urban strategy, demonstrating once again that durable, inclusive, and innovative cities are built when culture is treated as a core driver of urban life rather than a peripheral concern.
BOTTOM-UP PLACEMAKING (Hou, 2018)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/48513518
This text highlights how, from Taipei to Tokyo, communities and NGOs are responding to rapid urbanisation through bottom-up placemaking. While large-scale development has often erased traditional urban fabric in the pursuit of the modern metropolis, remarkable landscape design projects show an alternative path. Shaped by political histories where change now comes from both the top and the bottom, these initiatives prioritise urban open spaces through creative social engagement, collaboration, and community agency. Bottom-up placemaking not only transforms built landscapes but also repositions citizens as active participants in shaping cities, leading to more creative uses of space and stronger social relationships.
The examples demonstrate this in action. The Mullae rooftop garden in Seoul turns an industrial rooftop into a social and productive green space through gardening, beekeeping, and markets. Edible Way in Matsudo uses small-scale urban food production to build social connections in a bedroom community by adapting everyday traditions. In Taipei, ParkUp converts small vacant sites into flexible gathering spaces for events and daily life, supported by local government programmes. Together, these projects show how community-driven design can counter top-down development while strengthening social ties and local capacity to self-organise.
SHOW, DON’T TELL: PERFORMANCE AS PLACEMAKING (Lucena Scarpella & Cartwright, 2025)
https://open.substack.com/pub/globalculturaldistrictsnetwork/p/show-dont-tell-performance-as-place?
The article reflects a shift within the Global Cultural Districts Network (GCDN) from treating artistic experiences as ornament to recognising them as substance. While earlier convenings focused on talking about the value of art in public space (how to measure impact, report value to stakeholders, and manage gentrification and displacement), the authors acknowledge that this remained largely theoretical. Sessions, panels, and strategies could not fully communicate art’s civic role. The turning point came with the realisation of a core artistic principle: show, don’t tell. By moving performances outdoors, rooting them in place, and allowing art to inhabit public space, GCDN began to value impact not just through metrics, but through shared experience that was legible to all stakeholders, passersby as well as attendees.
The Walkshop format embodied this shift. In Athens and Los Angeles, three short, site-specific outdoor performances invited reflection on identity, politics, ecology, and civic life, while foregrounding artist voices over institutional narration. These performances, whether queer anthropologies reclaiming marginalised histories, or works activating fountains, streets, and parks, reshaped public space into something more inclusive, dynamic, and alive. They demonstrated how communication improves when cultural districts entrust locals, keep the format simple, and let artists lead with clarity of theme and intention. Despite logistical challenges, the experiment proved worthwhile: performance became a mirror of civic life, a way to amplify local voices in global debates, and a reminder that the true value of art in public space lies not in explanation, but in experience.
LIVING ARCHIVES: WEAVING GENDERED (HI)STORIES OF TERRITORIAL RECLAMATION (Ortiz & Villamizar Duerte, 2023)
https://archive.org/details/report-living-archive-moravia-2023/page/n12/mode/1up
The report examines how women in Moravia, Medellín, an area shaped by displacement, migration, waste reclamation, and urban renewal, use participatory archiving and storytelling to reclaim territory and collective memory. Drawing on a decolonial feminist perspective, it frames living archives as a form of urban reclamation and spatial justice, made up of everyday socio-spatial practices such as weaving, gardening, mapping, and audiovisual storytelling. These practices transform cultural heritage into a living, collective process rooted in community self-construction and women’s emancipatory actions, challenging top-down redevelopment and redefining what sustainable urban transformation means in contexts of vulnerability. Central to the research is the process of co-creative imagination, where local knowledge, skills, and intangible cultural practices are mobilised to make Moravia’s living archive visible as a tool for reparation and permanence.
Structured around three core issues: (1) security of tenure, (2) reception of migrants, and (3) ecological reparation, the report shows how women act as agents of care and resistance in shaping Moravia’s future. Through narratives of housing rights, homing practices among migrants, and community-led ecological repair, the living archive reveals how belonging is produced through everyday interactions with land, plants, memory, and shared histories. The conclusion emphasises collective action and emotional connection to territory, positioning living archives as an affective infrastructure for healing and peacebuilding. By spatialising memory and emotion, the project demonstrates how culture-led, community-driven practices can support territorial repair, protect inhabitants from displacement, and imagine more just and inclusive urban futures.
STREET ART AS A PARADOX: URBAN REGENERATION AND TOURIST ATTRACTION IN PORTO (Klein & Bueno Carvajal, 2025)
https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2025.2527916
The article examines street art in Porto as a paradoxical force within culture-led urban transformation. On one hand, street art reshapes public space and acts as a form of cultural resistance, challenging dominant narratives and asserting alternative uses of the city. On the other, it has become entangled in urban regeneration and cultural tourism strategies that fuel touristification, property valorisation, and gentrification. By tracing the rise of cultural tourism in Porto, the study shows how street art simultaneously contributes to urban vibrancy and becomes a tool within market-driven redevelopment.
Focusing on artists, institutions, and policy frameworks, the article highlights the tensions between urban activism and institutional co-option. Street artists navigate a fragile space between autonomy and commodification as their work is absorbed into place-branding and tourism promotion. Ultimately, the study questions the limits of street art as an agent of change, asking whether it can sustain its transformative potential within regeneration policies or whether its incorporation into market logics dilutes the very resistance that once defined it.
SEEDING ARTS INVESTMENT IN PEOPLE AND PLACES (2020 to 2024) (Sarah Boiling Associates, 2024) OR (The Arts Council Ireland, 2024)
The Creative Places programme, launched in 2020 by the Arts Council, is a significant initiative focusing on longitudinal arts investment in 19 historically underserved communities across Ireland, with a total investment of €5 million to date. This research report, Seeding arts investment in people and places (2020 to 2024), highlights the substantial positive impacts, showing that the programme is achieving social benefits, strengthening local partnerships, and providing creative and economic opportunities for artists. Key outcomes include challenging negative perceptions, fostering local pride, building confident and connected communities by reaching beyond the usual suspects, and making it more viable for artists to practice socially engaged work and earn a living locally. A total of 125,000 people has been reached through the programme.
The success of Creative Places is largely driven by its design: a long-term funding commitment, significant investment levels, and a foundation of trust and flexibility from the Arts Council, allowing projects to be genuinely responsive to local needs and adopt community development principles. However, the programme faces several challenges, notably concerns about future sustainability and funding duration, with a widespread agreement that three years is not long enough to build the necessary relationships and structures. Operational hurdles also include confusion and frustration regarding Arts Council processes, the need for increased resources and support for coordinators, and local issues such as a lack of physical facilities or infrastructure. Recommendations stress the need for the Arts Council to sustain its commitment, articulate clear long-term intentions, and improve communications and evaluation support.
REIMAGINING ABANDONED BUILDINGS INTO CULTURAL CENTRES (Anthropocene.City, 2024)
https://www.anthropocene.city/podcast/9-reimagining-abondoned-buildings-into-cultural-centres
This podcast episode explores how grassroots cultural centres transform abandoned buildings into catalysts for urban renewal, creativity, and social cohesion. Drawing on Tiffany Fukuma’s experience leading Trans Europe Halles, the conversation highlights how artists and communities reinterpret vacant factories, military sites, commercial buildings, and parking lots to create new identities for places and empower residents to shape their own environments. These initiatives demonstrate that urban transformation is not primarily about architecture, but about people projecting shared desires onto space. By repurposing what already exists, grassroots cultural centres foster belonging, experimentation, and cultural vitality while contributing to more sustainable and liveable cities.
The main message is that trust in communities is essential for long-term urban transformation. Fukuma argues that small-scale funding, flexible regulation, and collaboration, rather than top-down control or large capital investments, allow resident-driven projects to thrive. Across Europe and beyond, these centres act as micropolitical movements that negotiate with city administrations, influence policy, and model alternatives for sustainability, social justice, and cultural inclusion. The episode ultimately positions grassroots cultural centres as translators between citizens and institutions, showing that when cities support bottom-up creativity, abandoned buildings can become engines of resilient, regenerative urban futures.
TOWARDS A EUROPEAN CREATIVE PLACEMAKING FUTURE
Our selection of text-shares varies in form and covers a wide range of twenty-first century topics, highlighting trends between culture, the city, and urban development. From where we began, culture-driven regeneration as an economic strategy, to what emerged, bottom-up practices that challenge the existing model, to what we have learned: culture as a relational and social infrastructure. In retrospect, we also discover where tensions lie, the paradoxes of cultural autonomy, tourism, and gentrification. Ultimately, one question remains: where are we headed?
As Miles & Paddison noted, early cultural regeneration emphasised flagship projects, symbolic capital, and creative economies. More recent analyses, such as the WCC report and the Creative Places project, demonstrate a shift toward culture as essential social infrastructure, embedded in well-being and climate resilience. Moreover, the texts reveal a shift from institutional to community-based action. A growing legitimacy of bottom-up and community-led urbanism is evident across Hou, Living Archives, Porto’s street art, and the establishment of grassroots cultural centre creation in East Asia. What initially began as an alternative practice is increasingly recognised as essential to spatial justice and sustainable urban planning. Conversely, performance as a form of placemaking, street art, and participatory archiving also demonstrate how public space can be contested and negotiated. Instead of neutral territory, the city becomes a stage for identity, belonging, memory, and resistance, exposing the politicisation of public space. Porto, Miles & Paddison, and global policy reports collectively reveal the persistent paradox: culture generates value but can also accelerate displacement. This unresolved tension between urban regeneration and gentrification is a recurring theme that has persisted from the mid-2000s to this day.
Ultimately, across these texts and resources, we see a shift in understanding of cultural value, from purely economic indicators to relational, social, and emotional forms of value such as pride, memory, co-creation, safety, and cohesion. The WCC report and the Creative Places report confirm this shift at the policy level. STARTUP contributes to this systemic effort of expanding notions of cultural value. The project adopts the placemaking paradigm, which promotes a bottom-up, small-scale and place-based approach. In eight small-scale trials, placemaking based on culture and creativity will be tested and refined. Cultural mapping and comparative case study research will further promote the knowledgebase for such interventions. The trials, mappings and case studies will form the empirical underpinnings of analyses of sustainable architectural design, multi-level policy and governance, and social, economic and environmental impacts (positive and negative) of culture-driven placemaking. These analyses, in turn, will form the evidence-base for STARTUP’s final results and main outcome: a “European Creative Placemaking Framework”, which is the policy-option STARTUP will innovate. The approach of the framework builds upon local actors in culture and creativity, and aims at strengthening these actors as well as local authorities, in building their future on the tangible and intangible cultural resources represented in the place. The framework, which aims to be a world-leading management tool, hereby supports local economic development, sustainability, social cohesion and identity across Europe, but based on local cultural and creative professionals engaged in their art.