Many authors point to expanding disparities related to wealth and social benefits brought by globalization and the creative city movement while culture and creativity emerge as growing forces in urban placemaking and economic development. The phenomenon of cultural district formation in cities around the globe presents challenges and opportunities for leaders, planners, and managers. Emerging theory related to cultural districts suggests culture can serve to build horizontal relationships that bridge people and networks from different sectors and professions as well as across ethnicities, class, and interests. Research for this dissertation examined the formation of three urban cultural districts social and their respective organizational networks in different contexts. I employed a multiple case study approach to ask: How do horizontal networks form in the process of planning, organizing and/or ongoing management of cultural districts, and what kinds of benefits do those networks generate within their communities? Field research focused on districts in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Miami. This dissertation is positioned within ongoing discourse around the tension between form and function in the production of space (Lefebvre, 1974/1991) and within the dialectic of centralization and decentralization in urban planning and governance (Friedmann, 1971) characterized by the push for broad social equity and the pull of local control. Research found that strong horizontal networks characterized by dense and active grassroots leadership were present at the same time as relative community stability and higher levels of social and economic equity. Where horizontal networks were weak, social and economic tensions were higher. The research did not examine other potential factors and thus cannot ascertain whether strong networks resulted in greater stability and equity or whether stability and more equitable conditions brought on by other factors fostered the formation of stronger networks. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, http://aura. antioch. edu/etds/and OhioLink ETD Center, http://www. ohiolink. edu/etd