Fostering Culture and Creativity for Local Development Case Study: Romania and Greece Metropolitan Regions

Creativity and culture contribute to the transformation of local economies by increasing the well-being of citizens, supporting economic growth, and creating new perspectives for the attractiveness of cities to travel, live, or invest. In this paper, we have analysed the link between the cultural and creativity performance of metropolitan areas from Romania and Greece, included in the European Commission Cultural and Creative Cities Monitor. Focussing on two of the three components of the Cultural and Creativity Index (C3): Cultural Vibrancy and Creative Economy, we found that there is no strong correlation between the values of these dimensions for the group analysed. This could be the result of (1) the concentration of public policies to support a particular dimension and (2) the specific conditions of the metropolitan areas considered. Within these particular factors, we have identified that the creative economy dimension is strongly correlated with economic development and employment rates, while the cultural vibrancy dimension is strongly correlated with aspects related to the age distribution of the population, education level, and tourist attractiveness. There is a strong link, both nationally and internationally, between tourism and culture, a fact that leads to economic development through the exploitation of the potential for cultural tourism.