The Fordist city and the creative city: Evolution and resilience in Turin, Italy

- The evolution of the urban economic base of Turin, Italy is analysed.
- The relations between culture and resilience are explored.
- The variety of economic cultures and practices supports urban resilience.
- Urban typologies such as the Fordist and the creative city may hybridise.

Turin is an industrial city which has been a key site for Italian industrialisation in the past century, particularly because of the presence of FIAT car manufacturing. Turin is regarded as the archetypical Italian Fordist city, but as a consequence of the gradual crisis of Fordism, local institutions started diversifying the city's economic basis, particularly in the last decade, by embracing a culture-led approach to urban regeneration. The article analyses the evolution of Turin from Fordism, drawing on the concept of resilience. Specifically, the analysis will support two arguments. First, by focusing on the evolutionary patterns of alternative segments of the socio-economic base of the city, it is possible to detect synergies between the variety of local economic cultures and practices, on the one hand, and the capability of coping with shocks and transformations, which is basically resilience, on the other hand. Secondly, emphasising a multi-equilibrium perspective, it is possible to argue that apparently contrasting urban typologies, such as the 'Fordist city' and the 'creative city', have a hybridising potential, producing mixed forms of industrial-cultural cities as a result of the interaction between creativity and path-dependent growth.