Broader transformations in the economy are linked to a changing spatial organisation for economic activity, particularly in industries imbued with a high creative content, although there are competing explanations regarding the nature of this logic.
Until recently, relatively more attention has been given to the inter-urban and indeed international scales, than to the intra-urban geography of the economic transformation and, within this,there has also been a tendency to focus on a small set of global cities. With the aim of redressing these imbalances, this article examines the logic guiding creative industry concentration in the central core of a city, as opposed to more peripheral sites in the wider city region, and uses the example of a transforming regional city negotiating its place in the knowledge economy, Manchester, UK.