Characterizing the Urban Creativity Ecosystem: agents, processes, and mediations toward sustainable communities

Abstract

By recognizing creativity as a driver of urban sustainability, this study analyses the transition from conventional planning toward the Urban Creativity Ecosystem, understood as a multiscalar network in which human, infrastructural, institutional, and symbolic capitals co-produce social, economic, cultural, and environmental value. Through a selective, structured, and integrative literature review and comparative case analysis, the study identifies its components and dynamics of scaling, co-evolution, and resilience. It proposes an open planning framework in which urban professionals and civil society collaborate to promote equitable development. The cases of El Campo de Cebada and Luz nas Vielas show the role of artists as cultural mediators capable of activating shared narratives, community bonds, and appropriation of public space. Finally, the article concludes that these processes require governance models that prevent heritage commodification, residential displacement, and the loss of local identity.