Urban imagineries and material realities. Small cities in the new economy.

The aim of the paper is to discuss and further develop insights related to the role and fate of small cities in the new economy (the knowledge and cultural economy). Economic and urban geographic theory has for decades focused increasingly on the urban dynamics related to big cities and metropolises as nodes in the cultural and knowledge economy (e.g. Scott, various years). The structural approach to city size can be seen as a matter of centrality or city functions, position in urban hierarchies and networks at regional national and global scale. Innovation and creativity as core drivers in the new economy find particular support in big cities due to location and urbanization economies. The smaller the city, the more limited the options for development in the new economy will be.

The structural position can be seen as only one aspect of the opportunity structure of small cities, however. Other opportunities rest with hidden or forgotten potentials related to located competences and culture, to small city characteristics,  or to new horizontal urban alliances, just to mention a few.

Taking a theoretical point of departure in the ongoing debate on small cities (Jayne et al 2010, Lorentzen & van Heur, forthcoming, Scott, 2010, among others), the paper will discuss the extent to which local culture and experience based policies of small cities are able to challenge unfavorable  situations of peripherality by developing new urban imaginaries and mobilizing unseen resources for urban development.

The paper will provide empirical illustrations from the Danish periphery (Lorentzen & Krogh, 2009, Lorentzen, various years) and will draw on sources on Canadian and Australian small cities, too.

The paper is part of a research program on small cities in the culture and experience economy at Aalborg University which is developed in partnership with a number of Danish municipalities.