Nowadays, the significance of culture and
culture-driven urban development is
becoming increasingly pronounced. This is
because of its expected contribution, which
offers both economic and social benefits for
the local context. In this thesis benefits of
culture-led urban development are considered
within the widely common context of urban
shrinkage, a context that is evident in many
cities of Post-socialist Europe. Nevertheless,
the meaning of culture-led urban
development as a planning strategy applied in
the context of urban shrinkage is
ambiguously perceived within planning
literature. Culture-led urban development is
seen as a strategy characteristic for growth
orientation, as well as a way, which refers to
the so-called management of urban
shrinkage. By choosing two Latvian cities
that constitute the context of Post-socialist
Europe - Cēsis and Liepāja – both having
pursued a relatively new culture-led urban
development and being arenas of urban
shrinkage, this research tries to understand
the planning approach represented by the
local concert halls and unfold their critical
aspects by employing the multi-causal
perspective on culture-led development.
Therefore, a following research question is
posed: How do the culture-led urban
developments in Liepāja and Cēsis reflect the
local planning approach for urban shrinkage
in Post - socialist context and what do their
critical aspects represent?