"The field of creative cities research sorely needs more books like Creative Margins that focus on real people and real experiences in different times and places. Building on a fantastic research project - careful interviews with diverse creative practitioners that resulted in strong, engaging narratives and case studies - it is lively, textured, rich, and refreshingly different from the orthodoxy in the field. Alison L. Bain, a well-established figure in the area, has once again anticipated, rather than followed, trends in urban cultural scholarship." -- Chris Gibson, Australian Centre for Cultural Environmental Research, University of Wollongong "Creative Margins is a valuable contribution to the fields of urban planning, urban development, culture planning, culture policy, creative urban development, and the like. Its focus on creativity in the suburbs is innovative, and its documentation and findings equally so. They have the potential to inspire a new strand of research in suburban development and cultural planning in comparative perspective." -- Anne Lorentzen, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University

Suburbs can be incubators of creativity: innovative and complex, but all too often underappreciated. In Creative Margins, Alison L. Bain documents the unique role of Canadian artists and cultural workers in suburban place-formation and dismantles mischaracterizations of suburbs as cultural wastelands.

Creative Margins interweaves stories of the challenges and opportunities presented by the creation of culture in suburbs, focusing on Etobicoke and Mississauga outside Toronto, and Surrey and North Vancouver outside Vancouver. The book investigates whether the creative process unfolds differently for suburban and urban cultural workers, as well as how this process is affected by the presence or absence of cultural infrastructure and planning initiatives.

Bain shows how suburban culture can enhance a city-region’s vitality and sustainability. This book firmly debunks the myth of culture as a solely urban phenomenon and demonstrates the social and economic merits of investing in suburban art and culture.

"

‘This logically organized book, written in accessible style, is rich in fact and anecdote, making it engaging reading for varied audiences.’