# Reframing creativity in the city: on the emergence of contemporary township creativity

## TL;DR

The paper explores how creativity in South African townships challenges traditional ideas of urban creativity and global city models.

## Contribution

It introduces township creativity as a new lens for understanding urban informality and marginalization in Global South cities.

## Key findings

- Dominant creative city narratives overlook informal and marginalized urban creativity.
- Township creativity reveals new urban dynamics through informal practices and local actors.
- Tourism and local actors play complex roles in township creativity, with both risks and opportunities.

## Abstract

This paper offers a provocation for reframing the spatiality of urban creativity by interrogating the groundswell of contemporary creativity in South African townships. Creativity in marginalised neighbourhoods such as townships does not fit dominant creative city narratives and global city aspirations. The literature is largely silent about creative work and spaces characterised by informality. This paper draws on critical urbanism emphasising the ‘ordinary’ and ‘informal’ to reinforce urban theory based on the neglected realities of Global South cities. The roles of tourism and actors in township creativity are examined and associated risks, vulnerabilities and potentialities are also considered.