This doctoral thesis researches de foundations of the creative behavioural patterns of inhabitants within the urban socio-cultural and economic weft.

The first goal is to develop in part 1, an ontological framework for the relationship between creative agency and the ongoing urban process. The angle of approach is dictated by the following ontological research hypothesis: the respective patterns of urban economic fitness and cities' economic growth are grounded in (dis)similarities in the socio-cultural embedded nature of local innovative practices.

A number of conceptual characteristics are introduced: namely, the evolutionary and complex adaptive systemic nature of the proposed ontology, the roles of emergence, memes, and extelligence in the framework and, amongst other things, the requirements of path dependence and and non-teleological change. Next, the actual urban ontological framework is developed. In first instance, this is done by testing the proposed layered abstraction through a number of sociological theories. Both the roles of 'creative agency' and of 'structural differentiation' are investigated in function of their potential contribution to a comprehensive understanding of the urban reality in terms of memetic information and extelligence. Then, the memetic/extelligent foundation of the ongoing urban process is linked to two economic models: the Kondratieff long-wave theory and the power law. The ontological framework is further developed through a set of capital types. The important implications of this framework for the urban economic and sociocultural weft are revealed through a number of topical points of attention: urbanization economies, urban social equity, governance and sustainability.

The second goal is empirical. It tests the strengths of the ontological framework. The complexity of the urban reality does not allow a complete testing of the ontological framework. Specifically, research is done into the discourses of certain agent-inhabitants – namely creative professionals and knowledge-intensive workers – on the attractiveness of their city. These discourses relate, on the one hand, to their role in the local creative and knowledge economy and, on the other hand, to their interests in the urban socio-cultural weft. The research is implemented for two cities: Amsterdam and Antwerp. Finally, the findings on the urban discourses within these specific occupational categories are presented for commenting to a number of significant agents from these two cities.