The development of global creative centers from a regional perspective: A case study of Milan’s creative industries

With the advancement of globalization and the deepening interlock between cities globally, the research on urban culture and creative development should be expanded from a single city scale to regional and urban agglomeration scale. Creative clusters will become an important spatial scale to break the bottleneck of urban development in the future. In Europe, cities such as London, Paris, and Milan have developed creative industries and built creative clusters relatively early, and hence they gradually become global creative centers. However, there are few studies on the development of their creative industries from a regional perspective. This research uses multi-source data within the scope selected and based on comprehensive standards, to analyze regional development characteristics of creative industries in Milan, creative clusters formed with Milan as its core, and influencing factors of its development. Through the study of a global creative center from a regional perspective, references for emerging creative cities and those that require industrial transformation can be achieved.