Development and creativity at community level: can it be improved?

In my last post, A town like Alice: development and creativity at community level, I looked among other things at Armidale and Tamworth as a case study in the way in which different local history and culture affected development, arguing that Tamworth's faster business development was directly related to its culture.

Anybody who has dealt with cultural issues at organisational or community level knows that culture is hard and slow to change. So if the culture is opposed to something, that thing will be slow to happen. Given this, is it in fact possible to improve creativity at community level especially where this may require cultural change?

I think that the answer is clearly yes if the approach is linked to and set within a frame determined by the existing culture. I also think that the answer can be yes - although outcomes are less certain - where approaches require cultural change so long as the cultural change issue is approached indirectly.

I want to take the next few posts to tease these issues out.