Urban Subversion and the Creative City

Oli Mould is Lecturer in Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London.

"Urban Subversion and the Creative City is Oli Mould’s bold plea for truly creative urban thought and action … Creative, that is, in a wide range of subversive but always social ways, and not only outside but against the softly suffocating hegemony of authorized versions of the Creative-Cities script, in all its banal ubiquity. Not before time, this is the creative city turned upside down." Jamie Peck, Canada Research Chair in Urban & Regional Political Economy and Professor of Geography, University of British Columbia"The Creative City of neoliberal urbanism has met its match: In this fascinating, meticulously researched, truly global book, Oli Mould introduces us to the creative city of subversion and desire. A much needed act of liberation from the official terrain occupied by the creative class." Professor Roger Keil, Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Canada."Oli Mould is a legendary scrapbooker of all things urban, and the city itself - its benches, billboards, pavements, parks - is his raw material. This book is the product of many years of quiet but critically discerning rambling through diverse urban places and through eclectic academic ideas. Mould has painstakingly traversed both the world's iconic and ignored cities, collecting and photographing, asking questions and talking with those who make cities genuinely creative places - not the cashed-up hipsters, Creative City policy wonks or think-tank 'expert' authors of glossy strategic plans, but the activists, artists and ordinary people on the street whose desire to use the city to other ends make meaningful life out of concrete, brick and bitumen. This book is a rare insight into how to think the creative city differently, a book that crackles with conflicting voices, but always sees the city as a space of possibility." Chris Gibson, Director, Global Challenges Program and Professor in Human Geography, University of Wollongong, Australia

• Prologue: The Man upon a Wire Chapter 1. Introduction 2. Creating a Scene – The Need for a Creative City 3. The Creative Class(ification) of Cities 4. Quartering Creativity – Real Estate in the Creative City Interlude: The Rubble of the Creative City 5. Preparing for Flight 6. Urban Subversion 7. The Places of Subversion 8. creative city trajectories Epilogue: Climbing Wooly Bibliography