Editorial: Creative industries at the intersection between local agglomeration, national regulation, and global networks

During the last decades, economic geographers have become increasingly interested in creative industries, creative economy, creative cities, as well as the creative class. In addition to this increasing academic interest, testified by several recent special issues in economic geography journals (see e.g., Regional Studies Vol. 49, Issue 3), policy makers at various spatial levels (urban, regional, national, cross-border, as well as supranational) try to find ways how to foster the development of creative industries. Many studies focus both on the economic functions of creative industries, mainly in terms of labor, value-added production, and exports, and on their current organizational and networking features. From a geographic perspective, so far, two strands of literature prevail (for overviews, see Drake 2003; Comunian et al. 2010; Berg & Hassink 2014; Gong & Hassink 2017; Lazzeretti et al. 2018; Lorenzen 2018). First, by far most literature in economic geography explores the agglomeration and clustering of creative industries, and explains the evolution of these creative industry clusters. This strand of research also deals with labor market issues, project ecologies, temporary clusters, field-configuring events, co-working spaces and creative labs, creativity and knowledge production, and creative cities and creative regions. It has emphasized the concentration of creative industries in cities, by stressing the advantages of geographic proximity for informal information spillovers, local consumption, specialized labor markets, localized learning and networking, as well as the attractiveness of cities for talented and creative people (Lorenzen 2018). Second, and much younger and less prominently available, recent work analyses creative industries from a global networks and connectivity perspective (Coe 2015; Lorenzen 2018). These papers deal with creative industries and transnational corporations and foreign direct investment, the position of creative industry clusters in global networks, local buzz and global pipelines, offshoring, international co-productions, global niche markets, and international migration and creative industries (see e.g., Lorenzen & Mudambi 2013; Copercini 2015; Berg 2018). The increasing interest in this strand of research is a logical consequence of a shift from the traditionally dominating creative clusters in places such as Hollywood, New York and Paris “. towards higher complexity of globally competing and complementary creative industry clusters” (Lorenzen 2018, p. 307). This rapidly changing global map of creative industries is related to the lowering of entry barriers for creative industries in small countries and late-coming clusters, a less hierarchical international division of labor, as well as an increase in joint ventures and strategic alliances and in international personal or family (i.e., diasporas) and artist, professional or celebrity networks (Lorenzen 2018). However, since a large part of the creative industries produces cultural goods or goods that affect society, most of these industries are also still subject to national regulations, laws, and policies. So far, there is little dialogue between these strands of research and connections among local agglomeration, national regulations, and global networks of creative industries. This dossier, therefore, aims at exploring creative industries at the intersections between these three forces: local agglomeration, global networks, and national regulations. Intersections, which have so far, received little attention. Exploring the intersections between these forces with the complementarities but also tensions and changing linkages does not only fill a research gap concerning the economic geographies of