The Anatomy of the Creative City

Abstract

The aim of this contribution is to depict and analyze the dynamics of situated creativity by presenting an anatomy of the creative city and an understanding of the emergence and formation of creative processes in these particular local ecologies of knowledge. We propose to study the anatomy of the creative city by defining three different layers—the upperground, the middleground and the underground—as the basic components of the creative processes in local innovative milieus. Each one of these layers intervenes with specific characteristics in the creative process, and enables new knowledge to transit from an informal micro-level to a formal macro-level. In order to illustrate this point of view, the creative city of Montréal is analyzed through two main case studies: Ubisoft and the Cirque du Soleil.