How has the recession impacted on firms, people and places? How have local and regional authorities responded? This book aims to answer these questions by offering an overview of the impacts of the recession on people and places and how it has affected local authorities in the UK and other OECD countries. Being 'close to the ground', local authorities are usually at the forefront of dealing with the impacts of recession on people and places. During recessions, they face important challenges: on the one hand they have to cope with increasing demand for services and on the other hand they...

Creative and cultural industries, broadly defined, are now considered by many policy makers across Europe at the heart of their national innovation and economic development agenda. Similarly, many European cities and regions have adopted policies to support and develop these industries and their local support infrastructures. However this policy-making agenda implicitly incorporates (and indeed often conflates) elements of cultural and creative industries, the creative class and so on, which are typically employed without due consideration of context. Thus a better understanding is...

This book examines the role of community filmmaking in society and its connection with issues of cultural diversity, innovation, policy and practice in various places. Deploying a range of examples from Europe, North America, Australia and Hong Kong, the chapters show that film emerging from outside the mainstream film industries and within community contexts can lead to innovation in terms of both content and processes and a better representation of the cultural diversity of a range of communities and places. The book aims to situate the community filmmaker as the central node in the...