Does the Culture of Context matter in Urban Regeneration Processes?

This chapter offers an interpretation of the recent theoretical debate on culture-led urban regeneration from the unusual perspective of cross-cultural management studies where the culture of context is conceived as a collective phenomenon, a pattern of values and principles which influences the ways in which groups of people think and act. This theoretical hybridization provides a new perspective on the impact of culture of context on culture-led urban regeneration and local development. The main questions that drive the arguments and analysis here are: how does culture of context affect the nature and scale of culture-led regeneration? Which cultural context type can best balance the preservation of urban identity and the adoption of innovations in culture-led urban regeneration? A study of culture-led urban regeneration in the Italian Alpine city of Trento examines these issues, reveals the theoretical and managerial implications of local development driven by cultural-led regeneration and points towards future research on place branding conceptualization as a societal phenomenon influenced by place identity and values