Creative Hubs has become a nebulous term over the years, but the British Council uses a working definition referring to a hub as a physical or virtual place that brings together enterprising people working in the creative and cultural industries. There are estimated to be 1.2m people working from creative hubs globally, generally made up of micro SMEs and freelancers, which represent 85% of global employment and 3.3 million people in the UK (2015)
Creative Hubs have recently been recognised by the Malaysian government as an essential building block in its strategic plan to grow the creative and cultural economy. They are seen as a way of providing much-needed infrastructure to this fast-growing sector, particularly in Kuala Lumpur. Indeed, they are a key pillar of Kuala Lumpur’s five-year plan as laid out in ‘Kuala Lumpur as a Cultural and Creative City’ (Cultural Economy Development Agency – Cendana, 2018).
