The City's new hybrid experience spaces:   - Bridging old and new economies and territories in a search for new experience-based spaces in the city

In a series of workshops in Danish cities during the last couple of years, we have been establishing new ways of working with a clear local perspective in the new global discourse on culture, creativity and urbanity - urban innovation and urban branding in what could be called the experience city.  We argue that " hybrid economy" and "hybrid space" can be understood as a linkage of "a traditional economy" to a new "experience economy", as well as  a merging of  "traditional private urban spaces" with "new types of public domains". This coupling is the departure point for the mental movement from an industrial mindset towards a new pragmatic philosophy in the development of our cities, cities based on knowledge and culture. The term "hybrid urban spaces" breaks down the traditional division between public and private and seeks to choreograph the city as the space of experience which both serve as frameworks for traditional functions, while simultaneously taking on new roles, new meanings and new narratives.

This article serves as the first tentative reflection on results from a workshop at the ‘Skanok 05'; a conference on the experience economy held in Aalborg, October 2005.In the workshop in Aalborg, we took a somewhat blurred definition of the creative city and booming experience economy and brought it from its global circulation and linked it to local conditions and potentials. In this process we talked about "urban hybridization". The main focus of this investigation is to understand the notion of creative alliances between cultural institutions and business life as a basis for new urban development - the city's new hybrid experience spaces.