Berlin's Creative Industries: Governing Creativity?

TLDR

Berlin’s rapidly expanding creative sector is a focal point of city development policies and place marketing, driven by communities of practice that evaluate quality and spur innovation. The study investigates whether spatial‑organizational forces of creativity in Berlin can be steered by public administration, highlighting the potential for self‑governance. The authors employ the four paradoxes of creativity as a theoretical lens and analyze Berlin’s creative industries using existing databases and recent studies, including Berlin Senate assessments of economic contribution. The paradoxes reveal a tension between the autonomy of creative production and the necessities of professionalization.

Abstract

This paper aims at discussing the issue of governing creativity exemplifying the case of Berlin. Berlin has a fast growing creative industry that has become the object of the city's development policies and place marketing. The core question is: What are the spatial‐organizational driving forces of creativity in Berlin—can they be steered by public administration? The point of departure of this paper is the four "paradoxes of creativity" formulated by DeFillippi, Grabher and Jones in 2007 that describe organizational dilemmas linked to epistemological problems of the study of creativity. For our analyses, we refer to and make use of the various existing databases and recent studies on Berlin's creative industries, in particular the attempts of the Berlin Senate to assess the economic contribution of creative industries. We will show the potential for self‐organization—and thus self‐governance—of creativity and creative industries in Berlin. This potential is linked to the activities of communities of practice that make use of Berlin's specific urban fabric. The "paradoxes of creativity" that have become obvious in the case of Berlin's creative industries concern, for instance, the tension between the autonomy of creative production, on the one hand, and the necessities of professionalization on the other. The local communities of practice—of which most of Berlin's creative industries are made—serve both as quality evaluation circles and drivers of creativity and innovation.