Creative City Aspirations in the Global South: Institutional Constraints and Cross-Sectoral Dynamics in Bandung's Creative Economy

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network has expanded rapidly across the Global South, yet critical examination of how UNESCO designation translates into tangible outcomes for creative practitioners remains limited. This study examines Bandung, Indonesia—designated a UNESCO City of Design in 2015—to investigate how institutional constraints shape creative production across three interconnected sectors: music, design, and culinary arts. Drawing on institutional theory and critiques of the creative class thesis, the study employs a mixed-method approach combining survey data from 1,100 creative actors with semi-structured interviews and policy analysis. Findings reveal a fundamental paradox: despite extraordinary creative assets and international recognition, persistent institutional constraints—including low intellectual property registration (53–58%), limited research and development capacity (68–70%), skill mismatches (54–64%), and pervasive informality (58% independent practitioners)—systematically constrain creative sector development. Cross-sectoral analysis reveals significant variations in institutional logics: the design sector benefits from stronger formal institutional support through UNESCO designation and university linkages, while music and culinary sectors operate under more informal institutional arrangements. These findings challenge assumptions that UNESCO designation alone catalyzes creative city development, suggesting instead that institutional fragmentation in emerging economy contexts creates distinctive patterns of creative production that diverge from canonical Global North models. The study contributes to creative city scholarship by: (1) extending institutional theory to creative economy analysis in the Global South, (2) providing comparative analysis of three creative sectors with distinct institutional logics, and (3) critically examining the limits of UNESCO designation as a development strategy.