PLUS Hub: A Cultural Co-creative Enterprise for Local Urban/Rural Regeneration

At European, national, regional and local level, several approaches are related to the Cultural and Creative Production System: new cultural districts, creative reuse of buildings and industrial sites, cooperation for common goods are becoming economic trends. This process is building the conditions necessary to encourage new cultural and creative industries especially in developing alternative forms of governance and management of resources for local regeneration. Considering this context, the research aims at responding to a yet open question in place-based regeneration policies and strategies: how the evaluation and urban planning process together with Cultural and Creative Production could convert economic austerity and cultural diversity in new local opportunities? The paper explains the “Community Branding (Co-Bra)” methodological approach for a learning and negotiation process that combines management models and multi-criteria/multi-group evaluation methods. Within the framework of Matera ECoC 2019, the case study of Pisticci (MT), the third-largest town in Basilicata (Italy), tested the Co-Bra method and started a cultural co-creative enterprise for urban/rural regeneration. The multidimensional approach together with a financial analysis, focused on the recognition of social, economic and cultural opportunities, provides strategies for both valorising cultural heritage and strengthening places network by a “community hub” with a multilevel governance: so-called “PLUS - Pisticci Laboratorio Urbano Sostenibile” (Pisticci Sustainable Urban Lab).