• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.691-711
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• 2016

Recently, Economic spaces around the world have changed dynamically. Creative arts and cultural actors have begun to emerge in old industrial neighborhoods of major metropolitan cities. These new actors can be seen as creative actors in arts and culture, as well as non-economic actors that have been somewhat overlooked in the traditional approaches of economic geography. They contribute to overcoming regional economic crisis, as these actors bring a particular deviant and creative atmosphere in the neighborhood. Especially, informal gatherings of artistic communities play a pivotal role in knowledge platforms for dynamics of knowledge creation and creativity, which has a significant effect on shaping a creative milieu in the initial stage of formation of a regional ecosystem. In this regard, this paper will investigate the fundamental mechanisms and driving forces of urban spatial restructuring through a case study of the creative arts and cultural ecosystem in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, Korea. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to identify the formation process and key drivers behind the development of the early arts and cultural ecosystem in Seongsu-dong from an evolutionary perspective.