Abstract
The idea of the ‘creative city’ has become increasingly popular over recent
decades in Australia, with planners and policy-makers connecting popular ideas
about economic development to the ‘soft’ attributes of cities, such as liveability,
innovation and creativity. The espousal of these ideas through policy has seen
cities increasingly being branded as innately creative while seeking to attract
‘creative’ classes. We discuss how these ideas are worked through the strategic
operations of city-State governments, using the example of universities to
illustrate how planning emphasizes the training and retention of students as part
of a creative class in utero. We detail deliberative efforts around student attraction
and retention that form broader multi-level partnership efforts at consolidating
economic development. We report on empirical research involving a hundred
interviews, with community and city-level key actors, and the analysis of policy
and State budget documentation. We find that universities, in partnership with city
and State governments and private partners, tactically draw on the liveability of
their cities to attract students as part of a broader effort to attain stronger positions
within the creative economy.