This report by the DESIAP team presents insights into four creative districts in Thailand, to better understand the unique features of their creative ecosystems and focusing on the interlinks between hubs and the neighbourhoods. We focused on each place’s unique hard and soft infrastructures and its social capital to understand the development and sustainment of a vibrant creative ecosystem. The four districts studied include Songkhla Old Town in the south, the Wua Lai district in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Charoen Krung in Bangkok and Sakon Nakhon in the northeast. The study offers different cultural, historical and social contexts to understand the impact of creative districts on the social and economic development of a place.
The research was commissioned by the British Council in September 2019 as part of The British Council’s South-East Asia regional Creative Hubs for Good programme. In Thailand it sought to explore the role of creative hubs in the development of cultural and creative districts. The research was carried out in the latter part of 2019, before the covid-19 virus crisis had stunned the world.