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Alternative Capitalism and Creative Economy: the Case of C hristiania
Author(s) -
Vanolo Alberto
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of urban and regional research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.456
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1468-2427
pISSN - 0309-1317
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01167.x
Subject(s) - creativity , situated , sociology , context (archaeology) , capitalism , creative economy , the arts , promotion (chess) , mainstream , creative class , perspective (graphical) , political science , law , visual arts , art , artificial intelligence , politics , computer science , paleontology , biology
The F ree T own of C hristiania is an autonomous community of about 1,000 inhabitants in the centre of C openhagen. Built as a squat for a hippy community in the 1970s, it is today a central node in the geography of activism, anarchism and alternative social life. This article analyses C hristiania from the specific perspective of creativity and within the context of the ‘creative city’ debate. The F ree T own is a lively innovative milieu, nurturing the arts, social experimentation, ideas and original architectural solutions. As such, it is becoming a more and more relevant space from the point of view of the market economy and in the promotion of the idea of a ‘creative C openhagen’. But I argue that much of its creative potential is connected to place‐specific socioeconomic factors. In this sense, the C hristiania experience troubles mainstream conceptions of creativity by revealing that creativity is both fluid and situated.