Michael Lim (p), Phitchakan Chuangchai (p)

Joanna Kurowska-Pysz

This paper looks at the creative district development process of a developing rural creative economy in the global south. Specifically, it presents an assessment of the process that the Old Town District in Sakon Nakhon went (and is going) through. It is one of the 20 poorest provinces in Thailand identified as an area for targeted development as part of its national economic development strategy called “Thailand 4.0.” It aims to determine how the development process was planned, how it is being rolled out and delivered to the community, and how the community is receiving this development intervention. It also strives to uncover blind spots in the development process, identify key areas of improvement to increase efficiency and effectiveness in its implementation, and analyse the learning curve that can be applied to other creative district developments.

This research is driven primarily by an ethnographic approach using participant observation, semi-structured in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, and document analysis. It provides the necessary qualitative data in understanding how creative district (and city) development works in the global south in terms of definitions and methodologies. By describing, detailing, and evaluating the development process, it sheds light on the approach/es undertaken by developing countries—which are commonly western-centric and -borrowed—and how these are applied and implemented or translated into reality. Questions and discussions cover peoples’ roles and involvement in the creative placemaking process, any barriers or obstacles to development encountered, perceived successes and failures, concerns and issues about how their place in sustainable urbanization might look like, and how local participation has contributed to the development process. It examines the role of the Thailand Creative District Network (TCDN) as one of the country’s primary tools for city development and its pathway to producing more creative cities in Thailand.

The process evaluation checks whether TCDN is falling into the usual trap of churning out creative city ‘templates’ one after another. Therefore, it addresses two of the more common pitfalls of creative district or city development (especially in the global south). First is the tendency to use a cookie-cutter approach and adopting this as a ‘fast-policy’, and second is the lack or absence of (local) community and industry involvement in the policymaking process. In effect, this study could help TCDN to develop mitigations to minimise delays or more intractable barriers, which would strengthen the sustainable growth of the creative industries, and thus the creative economy.

Joanna Kurowska-Pysz (p)

Ioannis Kaplanis

The work aims to identify the key consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on managing cross-border projects financially supported by the INTERREG Programme and present the assumptions to build cross-border cooperation more resistant to crises. To solve the research problem the author conducted both qualitative and quantitative research on two borderlands where entities developed cross-border micro-projects during the pandemic. The research areas were: the Franco-German-Swiss borderland and the Polish-Czech-Slovak borderland which diverse the level of maturity of cross-border relations and dynamics of cross-border flows. The research revealed the key interdependencies between managing cross-border projects and the skills essential in this process during the pandemic. The conclusions concern also the long-term changes in the methodology of managing cross-border projects which are the consequences of the pandemic and can support the development of more resistant cross-border cooperation, particularly because the risk of rebordering increased after the pandemic.