This paper explores and discusses the fairly recent phenomenon of cultural clusteringstrategies in the Netherlands. Amongst other things based on ideologies of enterpriseculture, the quest for urban imagery and positioning strategies, the changing spatial fabric ofcities and a search for economic and cultural revitalisation, for the past 5-10 years, the formationof cultural clusters has turned into something of an urban cultural development hype. However,
what at first glance appears as a common model, often accompanied by boldly expressed slogansconcerning the new role of culture and creativity in the physical and economic revitalisation ofcities, in more detail unfolds as an ambivalent and conflict-ridden mixture of cultural, economic, social and spatial interests and sentiments. From a short-term perspective, such an eclectic blending of interests and sentiments might be considered as a good opportunity for urban cultural developments within a post-modern urban development regime. However, from a long-term perspective, there is the danger that the divergent sentiments and interests start to undermine and constrain each other, in the end resulting in adverse effects, mutual distrust and a standstill of developments. Following a detailed investigation of five cultural clustering projects in the Netherlands, and based on Zukins account of the exchange of cultural and economic values in the contemporary city, the paper argues that, in order to get out of this potentially self-defeating situation, and to enable a more sensitive but also strategic involvement of the cultural sector in the governance of cultural cluster projects, it is necessary to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the complex dynamics involved. Central to this is a locally specific appreciation of the changing interaction between culture (place) and commerce (market) in
todays mixed economy of leisure, culture and creativity. This implies both a critique and advancement of existing theories concerning the role of culture in urban development and the development of a more detailed comparative perspective on urban cultural policy projects, thus moving beyond overgeneralised perceptions of the developments concerned.