What makes a cultural and creative city?
This second edition of the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor covers 190 cities in 30 European countries (the EU-27 with Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), 22 more than the 2017 edition, namely:
- 98 cities which have been European Capitals of Culture up to 2019, or which have been shortlisted to become an European Capital of Culture up to 2023;
- 33 UNESCO Creative Cities (up to 2017 winners) - excluding overlap with the European Capitals of Culture;
- 59 cities hosting at least two international cultural festivals running until 2018 or 2017 for biennal festivals.
These three selection criteria were used to refine the list from about 1 000 cities in Eurostat's Urban Audit database (with a minimum of 50 000 inhabitants) down to 190 cities on the basis of their demonstrable engagement in the promotion of culture and creativity - being included in the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor is thus in itself an acknowledgement of these cities' efforts in this domain.
By applying these criteria all the capital cities of the 30 countries are automatically included in the Monitor.
What does the Monitor measure?
The quantitative information is captured in 29 indicators relevant to 9 dimensions reflecting 3 major facets of the cultural, social and economic vitality of cities:
The qualitative component includes key facts and manifestations of cities' cultural and creative assets to illustrate and complement the quantitativeevidence. These touch on features ranging from the main cultural sites, artistic institutions or live events to the development of policy strategies and infrastructure (e.g. funds, tax incentives, creative incubators, fab labs) that demonstrate a city's commitment to supporting culture and creativity.
Some samples of qualitative information are offered in the report, with more comprehensive information available in the Cities pages and in Cultural gems.
A unique and comprehensive tool
Forty similar international indices inspired the development of the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor. However, the Monitor combines eight key design and quality features that set it apart from other similar indices and make it valuable for a large number of cities, thus providing a powerful resource that can inform city-level policy debates both within and across countries.
More specifically, the Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor:
- Provides a holistic and actionable measurement framework that is intended to inform the development of culture and creativity-related policies. It thus provides not only an aggregate Index score, but also allows for benchmarking cities on three sub-indices, nine policy dimensions and 29 individual indicators.
- Is relevant to all city types and makes benchmarking possible between five different city groups based on similar population, employment rate and wealth to help local authorities interpret results in the light of peer cities' performances.
- Offers two different and complementary versions - 'standardised' and 'flexible'. This online tool enables users to visualise results but also to input their own data for an existing city, create a new city entry or change the weights of dimensions or sub-indices to create tailored versions of the Monitor.
- Clearly spells out the cities' selection criteria, so that the approach to the extremely broad concept of 'Cultural and Creative Cities' can be easily understood.
- Goes beyond 'usual suspects' by including a majority are small and medium-sized cities (with a minimum of 50 000 inhabitants).
- Has been developed to ensure representativeness of the results, comparability (both within and across city peer groups), and ease of use.
- Follows, in its development, the methodology detailed in the JRC-OECD 'Handbook on Constructing Composite Indicators' (2008). Both the data and the complete methodology can be accessed in Docs & Data.
- Is based on both quantitative data (which combine official statistics and experimental data from the web) and key qualitative information showing the diverse forms that cities' cultural and creative vibrancy can take, from the hosting of internationally renowned festivals to state-of-the-art policy measures supporting culture and creativity.
Source: Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor - European Commission