Creative industries and areas as tools of global crisis management

Abstract

The topicality of the problem of the development of towns in Russia country can hardly be overestimated. More or less favorable life conditions can be found in the Moscow city region or in the regional centers. After the collapse of the USSR, many town-forming plants and factories were closed which led to the sharp fall in the standard of living in those towns and social instability. Since then the situation has not essentially changed for the better. The problem of building creative areas and the economy of creativity is of great significance for modern Russia. Today the developed postindustrial countries see the source of the maturity and stability of the society in the transition to the “economy of creativity” or as it is also called “the creative economy” where the main factor of production is the creative activity of the population capable of creating principally new products. The main goal of the transition is the building of the developed economy by creating an innovative environment, and the main instrument of achieving this goal is the “building” of creative towns with the creative industries as their basis. The elaboration of these topics starting with the American sociologist and futurologist Elvin Toffler has been the main focus of attention of scholars and practitioners across the world for nearly half a century. But so far there isn’t a universal scenario of the transition from one type of the economy to another. To achieve this goal, one needs to take into account the specific character of each individual country: size of the territory, availability of natural resources, size of the population, level of education, and culture, mentality, national traditions, and many others.