Creativity-led urban development in China: the case of Shenzhen's OCT Loft

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to analyze the phenomenon of creative industry and its influence on the urban transformation of chinese cities, with a particular focus on the city of Shenzhen. After an overview of the concept of creative industry and the available literature on how and where it generated, the work will focus on the conditions that allowed the developmnet of the creative industry in China and how it afftected urban development. The thesis will then focus on the case of the city of Shenzhen, that after becoming a Special Economic Zone in the 1980s has experienced an incredible economic growth becoming a creative economy hub. In order to give a complete overview of how creative industry has shaped the urban development of Shenzhen through creative-led planning, I will provide an analysis of the city’s creative clusters with a focus on the case of OCT Loft creative Park.