Indicators of creative territories: an application to Quito Metropolitan District

(*) Gierhake, Klaus; (**) Fernández-Jardon, Carlos María

(*)Zentrum für internationale Entwicklungs
und Umweltforschung (ZEU) der JustusLiebigUniversität
Giessen, Germany
gierhake@gmail.com

(**) Departamento de Economía Aplicada
Universidad de Vigo (España)
IDLAB, National Research University Higher School of Economics Perm, Russian Federation
cjardon@uvigo.es

Reception Date: 10/18/16 - Approbal Date: 12/20/16

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses the European concept of creative cities, generalizing the concept of creative territories, in a new context under three aspects: it deals with creative territories in Latin America, discusses creativity in the context of a metropolitan region and its surrounding areas (ciudad region) and examines creativity in the context of local development politics. More specifically, a creative approach of local development politics in the territory of the Metropolitan District Quito (Ecuador) is proposed. 
The paper determines the elements of the communal politics that facilitate the manifestations of the creative territories, shown in specific indicators, so to guide the analysis of the ability of territories to implement creative programs. In order to get this aim, this paper analyzes a series of experiments on a practical level, to contrast a series of indicators that link aspects of territory and innovation. In particular, authors study the case of Quito (Ecuador), with the idea of discovering the concepts and progress on managing the complexity of urban development and the need of the community institutional development, focusing on municipal policies on land use, innovation and smart cities. The findings of the study suggest that the experiences of Quito discuss indicators allow for a paradigm newly formulated: a new culture of local politics.

KEYWORDS: Territory; Culture; Creative Environment; Local Politics; Quito.

INTRODUCTION                                                                                                          

The discussion on kreatives milieu (creative environment) represents a line of the works of the social economic geography focused, above all, on the economic processes in the territories and their impacts. Normally, these environments were analyzed using case studies, especially in Europe (Fromhold Eisebith, 1995, Jekel & Fromhold Eisebith, 2003), although there are studies that have analyzed similar aspects in Latin America (Albuquerque, 2004). The theoretical perspective of this approach has recently been expanded by Suwala (2014), distinguishing economic, technological, scientific and cultural perspectives of creativity and their respective territorial expressions, offering interesting results, such us, a summary of the localization conditions for creative territories. Many of the indicators related to these aspects have been presented in a separate way (Hall, 2000, Perrin, 2013, Ravbar, Bole, & Nared, 2005), so it necessary to unify them with a more holistic vision to explain the social innovation process (Rodríguez Castellano, Hoyos Iruarrizaga, Izaguirre Olaizola, Molina, & Azucena, 2011). All this suggests the desirability of seeking a new approach to socio-political-cultural development in Latin America with the parameters associated with the concept of creative environments, which come from the field of culture (Suwala, 2014), in order to broaden the focus which considers terrirorial creativity only under economic results (Acs & Megyesi, 2009), so that the traditional concept of creative territories evolves towards a more generic concept, with the idea of constructing a multidisciplinary concept of creative environment, that would serve to develop the current geographical discourse and offer a holistic approach among various sciences.
There are instruments at the local level that allow the development of integrated actions of social innovation (Garofoli, 2009), promoting the construction of creative territories (García, 2015). These instruments are based on the political actions generated by the community (García, 2015). The work on kreatives milieu has not been able to include this perspective (Fromhold Eisebith, 1995; Butzin, 2000).
The objective of this work will be to determine the elements of communal policy that facilitate the manifestations of the creative territories, shown in specific indicators, so as to guide the analysis of the territories' capacity to implement creative programs. To this end, this paper analyzes a series of experiences at a practical level, which allow us to contrast a series of indicators that link the aspects of territory and innovation. In particular, we study the case of Quito (Ecuador), with the idea of ​​discovering the concepts and advances on the management of the complexity of urban development and the need for communal institutional development, focusing on municipal policies for land use, innovation and cities among other key issues (Maier & Obermaier, 2002). The Metropolitan Plans for Territorial Development and Planning integrated those partial experiences, and ensured their sustainability at the political level (MDMQ, 2012a / b). This scenario shows the characteristics of geographical processes of innovation (Gierhake, 2015).
On the one hand, the aim is to clarify the prospects of including the idea of ​​a new local policy culture (Bundeszentrale für politische bildung, 2012) as an additional category in existing concepts on creative cities as defined by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2004) extended to creative territories, facilitating the adaptation of local knowledge to metropolitan areas. In addition, it opens the door to a review of the role of the framework instruments (Metropolitan Plans, etc.) as the main tools of municipal management, to test the usefulness of the theoretical criteria for creative territories in a real case, such as the Metropolitan District of Quito (DMQ) and its development program 2009-2014. Finally, it allows putting a qualitative conceptual basis for the discussion on new creative environments that allows to precise future research with quantitative approaches. With this processing, it is expected to check the perspectives and limitations of applied geography (von Rohr, 1994) to analyze territorial processes in progress in the Third World.
To carry out the work, we then review some ideas of the theoretical framework in which it is circumscribed. Afterwards, the methodology of analysis is developed. Subsequently, the DMQ case is studied. Finally, the main results are presented as a conclusion.

DEVELOPMENT

Indicators in Creative Territories

The general framework starts with a focus on territory and creativity. This framework suggests that territories must learn to be creative (Florida, 1995). Learning territories are best described by specific processes within their economies, labor markets and technological progress. All these factors make it possible to improve cultural, social and organizational policies in the city / region (Konstadakopulus and Christopoulus, 2004). Florida (2010) introduces the idea of ​​creative classes in cities as a source of generation of learning territories. This concept is derived from creative cities. Suwala (2014) extensively reviews theoretical approaches and identifies, on the basis of a description of several cities over several centuries, a series of characteristics associated with creative cities that can be extended to creative territories. The general indicators of creativity include the infrastructures of universities and research centers, since they allow the introduction and transfer of new ideas in the territories (Mitchell, 2007). From the cultural sphere and especially from the concept of creative cities, aspects such as the constitution of a broad institutional social platform for the presentation of cultural expressions and the provision for the reception of cultural (political-conceptual) offers are presented (Manito & Kreanta, 2009).
In particular, different authors introduce as specific characteristics: The willingness to learn and make operative the new contents, take responsibility, the arrival of a new high class (with agglomeration of economic goods) (Alonso Domínguez, 2011), magnetic impacts of new ideas and perceptions about world development, cultural exchange that surpasses several cultural sub-sectors, a certain social tension between old and new values, change of social networks and a mixture of several existing networks, demands (high) by civil society and politics that favors Values ​​/ public goods, physical spaces that promote interaction, and, finally, improved local / international accessibility (Landry, 2012). All of them make up the specific indicators traditionally considered within creative cities (Suwala, 2014, Clark, 2004, Markusen, 2007, Mossig, 2011, Sailery Papenheimer 2007, Thiersteine ​​et al. 2009).
The political culture approach, as a guide to cooperation in construction, describes how political power is organized and implemented. Political culture has three key elements: opinions, attitudes and values. Opinions point to the everyday manifestations of culture, so they are the most easily changed, depending on the present state. Attitudes indicate political preferences and are moderately stable. Finally, values ​​point to the main source of culture of a territory because they include the general values ​​in society, so they are usually very stable (Bundeszentrale für politische bildung, 2012).
Political culture acts on the general tendencies of public opinion that are shown in a society, concentrating on the factors that can change the collective consciousness, related to education, economic and political situation. The main variables are oriented towards support for pertinence and identity with a system (feel proud to belong to a country, a territory, an institution); Political communication (can political issues be discussed in public spaces?); And political participation (sensitivity to pluralism, consensus, participation, access to information and its use) (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, 2012) therefore, communication and interaction between the leaders and society will allow us to introduce three indicators to the list of classic indicators of creative territories: Communication / interaction with local society, existence of communication tools (and feedback) and local political culture.
Consequently, the main hypothesis is that these general lines of political culture can be transferred to the local level, so that by reinforcing local identity through interaction and communication and feedback actions, different aspects of innovation appear facilitating the creativity of the territory. On this basis, we can make a first case test on a paradigm in European discourse, Kommunal politische Kultur (local politics culture), whose discussion so far focused on partial examples of projects (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2012). More specifically, it begins to discuss whether local politics is part of the cultural expressions of a territory and / or existing concepts.
Considering that political actors (the Municipality) intervene, it seems convenient to take into account the political culture, looking at its expression at the local level. On the other hand, it is also convenient to make use of the local knowledge approach since it is at the basis of creativity. All this leads to the expansion of the indicators suggested by Suwala (2014) with specific elements of the local culture, as shown in Table 1. This table is organized as follows: First, the general indicators (No 1 - 3), then the specific ones (No 4 - 13) and, finally, those proposed to expand the system of indicators (No 14 - 16).
Previous studies suggest that there is a lack of indicators to discuss how to drive innovations and creativity (Butzin 2000, Fromhold Eisebith 1995) within the kreatives Milieu, since the indicators for determining the territorial potential of innovations focused on business and networking aspects (Koschatzky 1997) with some approximation to the inclusion of cultural / social indicators referred to the state level, with specific conditions (Kiese 2004, taking Singapore as an example). On this basis we work with the first two groups of indicators, as compiled by Suwala (2014), summarizing previous works by Hall and Raumplaner (1998); Hall (2000), Lange et al. (2001), Storper and Venables (2004) and Tönquist (2011). These indicators will be contrasted empirically in the MDMQ.

Table No 1: Indicators for Creative Territories

Source: Suwala, 2014 (translation indicators 1-13), own work in Quito 2014 (indicators 13-16)

Methodology

The main methodology consisted of semi-structured interviews, both within the institution that leads the policy (in this case MDMQ) and with several institutions of civil society (list of institutions interviewed). In addition, a plausibility and coherence analysis of key municipal planning and legal documents was carried out.
Working with the methodology of applied geography (von Rohr, 1994) requires some strategic decisions. If we want to implement new concepts of territorial development, we must always consider that these are long processes. Research projects can take snapshots of moments in this process, so they always have a limited database, in a way. However, these researches on the path of complex projects with limited data are important, since they allow to specify needs in the implementation of projects in progress and to feed back the scientific discourse with needs expressed in the reality.
The applied geography approach requires a series of steps. In the first place, qualitative information must be obtained, in order to be able to specify the next step, which is to describe the possibilities and limitations of complementing the results with quantitative data. At the same time, the analysis of this information would come. According to these steps, we establish the process of analysis of existing indicators in the Quito Metropolitan District. The Quito expressions for a creative territory are presented in a summarized way, to maintain a framework of a table that allows a global vision. Next, the type of quantitative information that exists is presented as perspectives, as can be gathered and in what cases it would be necessary to define new indicators.

To evaluate the local policy culture, available documentation from the MDMQ administration 2009-2014, supplemented by the interviews mentioned above, was reviewed to analyze whether there is a basis for constructing an additional criterion for locating creative cities and specifying possible variables.

Quito metropolitan district: indicators of creative territories

The Quito Metropolitan District (DMQ) represents an illustrative example in this context. With an area of ​​approximately 4200 km2, with a topography that reaches from 500 m to 4800 m above sea level, the DMQ houses 17 different ecosystems. Approximately 2.5 million people live in the DMQ, concentrated mainly in the city of Quito and the headwaters of 33 rural parishes. Some of the valleys, such as those of Tumbaco / Cumbaya or Los Chillos, undergo dynamic urban processes and little order. Based on the Metropolitan Zone Law, enacted in 1993, the Municipality of Quito achieved more competencies, such as in the transport sector. With the New Quito International Airport, inaugurated in February 2013, it was possible to increase passenger and cargo arrivals by 30% per year. Transport flows between the DMQ population centers continue to grow (dynamically). An increase in the pressure on land use is very evident. However, 60% of the area is still populated with forests (including stopping etc., MDMQ, 2012a / b). Quito still does not face the typical problems of the large metropolitan areas of Latin America (the megacities, that is, areas with a population that exceeds 5 million inhabitants, such as Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, and Bogotá.
The discussion on new decentralized strategies, their perspectives and limitations in the national territory was accompanied by activities in the academy. Without intending to present a detailed summary of the discourse and its evolution, this paper focuses on some central expressions of this discussion, which help to understand the form of the territorial discussion between 2009 - 2014. The theme of local governments and the need to find new as developed in relation to the DMQ.
The Barrera government has specified in its management a series of development programs initiated by the previous administration, referring mainly to territorial development. The MDMQ has a tradition in development planning that has survived the neoliberal era, presenting qualitative advances, above all, regarding the general concept of planning and territorial ordering (MDMQ, 2012a / b; Gierhake, 2015).
With the Metropolitan Development Plan, complemented by the Territorial Planning Plan, the MDMQ has created a management tool that has as main elements of the axes of safe and efficient mobility and transportation, the guarantee for a universal accessibility to the public space and its use, the reduction of environmental problems caused by urban growth not orderly, regional urban development under territorial and environmental perspectives, and polycentric population development in the DMQ seeking a more equitable access to social services.
On this basis, five higher objectives were formulated (1) to focus development on human aspects and to use a territorial perspective, (2) to develop DMQ according to social and territorial functions, to focus on public goods, (3) to foster a (4) promote a process of general modernization, which includes technology and communication tools, (5) implement a democratic territorial management, which includes the mobilization of social actors and the possibilities of exercising the rights of citizenship (MDMQ, 2012a).
With the publication of the Buen Vivir Plan and its territorial strategy for the whole country, political interest in this issue was shown at the highest level (National Secretariat for Planning and Development, 2009).
Faced with structural problems that show territorial expressions, such as the asymmetry in the country's development; fragmentation, heterogeneity and disarticulation, tax asymmetries, the government made a series of proposals for a new policy, among others, a new territorial ordering; a system of defined competencies; articulated intergovernmental planning and management system; a collection and allocation predictable and co-responsible.
With a view to territorial development under the Barrera administration in the MDMQ, the following characteristics can be summarized: (a) The political discussion on decentralization and local governments was accompanied by an academic discourse, focusing and analyzing administrative, legal, political and social aspects. (B) While it is true that the academy mentions the territory theme at the publications level, everything remains at a simple description level. The specific institutional base (Faculties of Geography / Territorial Ordering etc.) have been limited. The DMQ as an innovative territory has remained at the level of a classic postulate of the creative territories, since the specific territorial resources and assets were not identified (Córdova, 2010). In fact, there is no specific university education in the area, since the only Faculty of Geography in the whole country that offers training in Geographic Science and Territorial Planning, is that of the Catholic University of Ecuador, but this did not have any project of research oriented to the territorial ordering and its socio-economic factors between 2006 and 2013 (Universidad Católica del Ecuador, 2014). The publications of other sciences do not make reference to the classic works on territorial analysis or the relation between innovation and territory. (C) There was no international cooperation directly related to the development of the main territorial management instruments in DMQ 2009 - 2014 (Gierhake, 2015). It is worth mentioning the presence of some international cooperation in 1990/2000 (Barrera, 2007). (D) Undoubtedly, the high conceptual quality of the Metropolitan Development Plan and the Territorial Planning Plan is striking. In the context of the above, the problems of transmitting the main messages of these documents to key institutional actors, such as academia (Gierhake, 2015), are not surprising.
The general structure of the administration carried out a transformation with the idea of ​​adapting to a more innovative model of the territory. The organization of the operation of the Municipality was adapted to the new functions designed by the government team. To this end, the coordination meetings were prepared more intensely by introducing, at the same time, a monitoring system to inform everyone about the progress of the transformation; A system of considerable internal flexibility, professional quality and significant levels of trust were introduced between the management level of the Mayor's Office, the Secretaries / Directors and their advisors; A shared identity was built in the MDMQ (high / medium levels) making use of the institution's existing institutional memory. This basic structure helped the implementation of new projects, especially of a multisectoral nature (Territorial Ordering, Adaptation Strategy to Climate Change, Digital Agenda, Integral Transportation Planning, etc.) (See Gierhake, 2015).
Under the theme Innovation and Intelligent Cities (Barrera, 2013b) the Mayor of Quito presented a program that can take the theoretical concept of political culture to a practical level, integrating aspects such as communication, participation, and the creation of identity and belonging to the institution. Considering the main guidelines of this new paradigm - the analysis of the population's awareness of the institutions that lead the process (the municipality), training / education issues and, finally, economic and political issues - the MDMQ presented a program that has potential for change in each of the above perspectives. Concrete projects to improve communication about local politics deserve mention: campus parties, free internet, awards for innovation, university fairs, the metropolitan information system. Likewise, the measures that are part of the package on intelligent quality of life had an impact on communication, such as integrated risk management, integrated security systems, activities developed in the Community Development Center. On the other hand, activities were carried out such as the Digital Agenda, technological control centers, the new administration and accounting system, the what’s nearby, economic and productive indicators modules for investors with decisive potential to increase participation in politics. On the basis of improved communication, increased citizen participation, one can expect to strengthen a sense of belonging and identity with the institution. The interviews on the institutional structure and its functioning verified this process (Gierhake, 2015).
The municipal administration between 2009 - 2014 has allowed generating a series of aspects in the DMQ, that show with characteristics of creative territory and, at the same time, suggest additional indicators of their own creativity, allowing to extend the concept of creative territories. The geographical models used in Europe for integration between territory and innovation take into account a series of elements that manifested themselves in the Quiteña reality. We start from this approach to review that reality. However, there are basic elements not considered in the previous literature, associated to the idea of ​​social capital. The integration between both aspects is evident (Yde, 2012), however, some aspects that promote social capital have not been sufficiently considered. This happens with communication (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2011), an aspect that seems essential in the DMQ's development strategy. Another essential aspect refers to the local political culture itself, since it influences in particular the development and maintenance of the social capital of the territory (Ravbar, Bole, & Nared, 2005). It is therefore logical to introduce indicators relating to these aspects.
According to these steps by the vision of the applied geography we establish the process of analysis of the existing indicators in DMQ. The Quito expressions for a creative city are presented in summary form, to maintain a frame of a table that allows a global vision. Next, the type of quantitative information that exists is presented as perspectives, as can be gathered and in what cases it would be necessary to define new indicators. These aspects are presented in Table 2.

Table No 2: Summary of the expression of the indicators in the DMQ and perspectives for quantitative data

Source: Own Elaboration

For all the characteristics of creative territories identified above (Suwala, 2014), answers are found in the context of the DMQ. It can be shown that the new features, proposed to complement the initial listing, also find coherent answers. Thus, there is a set of territorial indicators that can explain the process of social innovation implemented by the MDMQ.
There is a potential multiplier of this process, as can be seen in all the international presentations of this research (see list of institutions Interviewed). Table 2 shows some illustrative examples that suggest a series of previous results: (1) On the basis of the first analysis, it is necessary to specify an indicator: Infrastructure of universities / research centers. This indicator is relevant in the context of cities and their creative potential. However, the DMQ case shows that there are territories with creative capacity, without this infrastructure, since in this specific case DMQ does not have academic institutions that work on territorial analysis and / or multidisciplinary research (Gierhake, 2015). The discussion on local knowledge in metropolitan areas represents a basis for expanding (improving) this indicator on institutional infrastructure for territorial creativity. (2) Indicators are willing to learn (No. 4), take responsibility (Nº 5), and different cultural expressions (Nº. 2) well emphasize the ability to create new policies and efforts to strengthen cultural / learning / DMQ. At the same time, these indicators allow to deepen the discussion about the existence of a certain fragmentation that appeared in the Quito society as a result of the establishment of the new Development Plan for the Metropolitan Zone, producing a certain rejection of this process. This leads to the conclusion that, while these indicators are valid, in the process of implementing new proposals, more attention needs to be paid to other complementary factors. At the research level, these aspects suggest the need to develop two additional indicators (Nºs. 14 and 15 in Tables 1 and 2). (3) The indicators Magnetic Impact (Nº. 7), Cultural Exchange (Nº. 8), Demands for Public Values ​​(Nº. 11) and Support Physical Space (Nº. 12) assert the hypothesis that Quito holds a significant potential as territory creative. In addition, they indicate the strengths of the social innovation process between 2009 and 2014. (4) The change indicator in social networks (Nº. 10) may also explain these advances. The indicators Civil society (Nº. 14) and Instruments (Nº. 15) represent a structural response to the open questions of indicator Nº. 10. They also have the potential to be developed as tools for monitoring impact in a future process of innovation Social. (5) The indicator Local political culture (Nº. 17) in this part is reflected, as advances in the implementation of a social innovation - the Quito Metropolitan Plan 2012 and its instruments - could contribute to support the discussion at the scientific / conceptual level. The five specific programs, presented as a smart city, represent, by themselves, novelties in the local political culture. On the other hand, they produce inputs of everyday reality for the factors that theoretically have influence on a change of consciousness, and this in turn on the political culture existing in a territory. (6) It can be summarized that there is a qualitative basis for a multidisciplinary concept to analyze the capacity of a territory to generate innovative programs in communal politics. (7) As regards the prospects for arriving at quantitative data to measure creative ability, the following can be summarized: These data exist for the general indicator group; however they are not elaborated in this way in official statistics. For group of indicators Nº. 4 - 10, it seems advisable to discuss concepts of the social sciences associated to these indicators. In the case of indicator four (willingness to learn ...), five (assuming responsibilities) and seven (magnetic impact of new ideas) the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility oriented towards public policies represents a basis for designing suitable variables and indicators Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2007). Indicators nine (areas of social tension) and ten (social networks and changes) need to consider some concept of sociology; since territorial analyzes on creative cities have not integrated this perception yet. Indicator six (a new class has come to power) requires a concept of the political sciences and on this basis the development of indicators and an inquiry where this could be quantified. As regards the indicator eleven (a policy that favors the public) and twelve (spaces that facilitate interaction) the Mayor's speeches, the public space policy offers an extensive quantitative database).

 CONCLUSION

In view of the objectives of the article, it can be summarized that the activities carried out in the MDMQ 2009 - 2014 allow orienting the discussion on the local politics culture, documented at the level of initial concepts for new forms of development cooperation.
Based on the results of the institutional interviews, it can be concluded that progress was made in the implementation of a new culture of local politics, since priority fields of action were identified for projects that focused on the communication and participation aspects, such as the strengthening of Culture in general, the role of Community Development Centers; The activities of the economic promotion agency of the municipality of Quito (CONQUITO) related to economic strengthening in the South of Quito, Digital Agenda etc. with the Metropolitan Plan, an instrument was developed to ensure those new developments in political culture at the level of development planning. Finally, it was possible to create a shared institutional identity and modernized the administrative structure and the organization of the operation, two important complexes to obtain external image on the local policy driven by the Municipality.
In general terms, the complex system of relations between the political culture and indicators on concrete experiences in the DMQ represents another aspect to promote the discussion on the complementarity between speeches in Europe and Latin America. In the same way, the results allow to develop a multidisciplinary discussion on concepts of creative territories, suggesting aspects that expand the analysis. For example, it is necessary to territorialize the discussion on local politics culture, to elaborate the discussion from the political field on the experiences of a specific territory and, as a future step, after having included other territories in an investigation, to abstract the territorial factors in the development of a communal policy culture.
In this way, the discussion about local knowledge must be territorialized; the territorial expressions of human, structural and relational capital in the DMQ should be territorialized, compared with other areas of study, and abstract general location factors.
Finally, these results allow the analysis of similar processes in other areas, with the aim of refining the model and its explanatory value.
In general, it can be concluded that with the experiences of the DMQ there is a proposal of localization indicators for creative territories in terms of local policies. This can include many expressions: from traditional cultural expressions (theater, cinema, music) to new expressions, not yet discussed in relation to creative territories (eg communal policy for territorial development approaches or adaptation to climate change). Apparently, there is progress in concrete activities related to the complex territory - creativity in Latin America, which has a high potential to complement a stream of theoretical studies on territory and its impacts in Europe. Deepening this dialogue on complementarity could produce interesting contributions to discuss future challenges.
Further research in the social sciences would be needed to consider whether there are open cultural spaces in Latin American society to develop a new local political culture or the causes of political change in common social policies. There are good starting points, which appear as perspectives in table 2.
The results presented above allow concluding that there is a qualitative basis to discuss the factors that define creative territories. This conclusion represents an advance in conceptual terms in several senses. On the one hand, the traditional understanding of the Creative Environment is extended to non-economic factors, without losing sight of its importance to analyze the economic processes existing in those creative environments. In the DMQ, new approaches to local economic policies were initiated and tools were developed to anticipate managing this process. At the same time, the understanding of creative cities extends towards more general perspectives, perspectives that include the administrative-political framework that allows cultural expressions. In other words, there is the basis for discussing the indicators presented as a management tool for a political process, a new perspective compared to the results obtained previously. The two plans (Metropolitan and Territorial Ordinance) provide a general framework and facilitate the discussion of territorial indicators, overcoming the traditional view on characteristics of creative cities, leaving aside the perspective of development planning, in the background of these two plans and promoting a new vision of local politics in the DMQ. The territorial development vision could have additional information through localization criteria, which would surely boost the analysis of the impacts of the Plans mentioned.

Notes

1. Acknowledgements: The field work in the Quito metropolitan district (QMD) was financed the National Office of Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation of the Republic of Ecuador, within the Prometeo program. We thank them for their financing. The confidence found in all the offices mentioned before, their willingness to dialogue was essential to reach the results presented. We are grateful to everyone, we should mention above all: Fabián Sandoval, Angélica Arias, Jaime Lopez, Fernando Lara (MDMQ 2009-2014) and Nelson Rodriguez (Central Ecuador University). We also thank the suggestions of the editing team and those who revised this work so as to improve it.

BIBLIOGRAPHCIAL ABSTRACT

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