Cultural industries and creative clusters in Shanghai

This paper examines the basis, development process and the meaning of these 'official' creative clusters within the wider urban context.In this paper, I will focus on one aspect - the relationship between these creative clusters and their urban forms. I choose three conceptual approaches used to explain such relationships in Western creative clusters. Attempting to operationalize a policy concept borrowed from the West, Chinese creative clusters assume this can be applied in a different urban and national context. But can they? I discuss three creative clusters: 'M50', 'Tianzifang' and '1933' in Shanghai, all developed according to western cluster theories.