In this presentation, we would like to explore an important role of the social construction of the ‘City' to drive the contemporary capitalism. Capitalism always needs the production of space that is strongly characterized by political economic process. In the past Fordism era, nation-state had been the fundamental unit of socio-economic space. In the domain of regional policy, the slogan of “balanced development of national territory” had been pursued in many advanced countries. In other words, the welfarist orientation of “spatial Keynesian” regional policy had been planned and implemented.

Since the mid-1980s, however, cities and regions have been emerging as the motor of global economy. Many scholars and policy makers have pointed out the importance of local scale, whether it is a global city or an industrial district located in the provinces. In recent years, with the growing interest for “creative economy” or “cognitive cultural economy”, it has been recognized that network and community developed in the city (the former expands in the global level) promote knowledge creation and innovative activity. The urban policy increasingly puts the focus on changing the city into a “creative” environment which could attract talented individuals and develop their network and community.

What we would like to show is that peoples engaged in creative industries are driven by ‘city by project (Cité par projet)', which is located in the center of the ‘new spirit of capitalism' by Boltanski and Chiapello (1999). Through their activities and political practices which intend to attract talents, the ‘city by project' emerges as a real urban space.