The Creative City

A Toolkit for Urban Innovators

Charles Landry

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136554476
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The Creative City is a clarion call for imaginative action in developing and running urban life. It shows how to think, plan and act creatively in addressing urban issues, with remarkable examples of innovation and regeneration from around the world. This revised edition of Charles Landry's highly influential text has been updated with a new, extensive overview.

Part One

URBAN GROUNDSHIFTS

1

Rediscovering Urban Creativity

WHY ARE SOME CITIES SUCCESSFUL?

The origin of the Creative City concept lay in thinking about why some cities seem to have adjusted to, even surfed the wave of, change over the last two decades. Cities like Barcelona, Sydney, Seattle, Vancouver, Helsinki, Glasgow, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Curitiba, Rotterdam, Dublin, the cluster along the Emscher river in the Ruhr in Germany or around Zürich, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg – these and other thriving cities seem to have made economic and social development work for them. Others seem to have been passive victims of change, simply allowing it to happen to them.

In reflecting on my work in various places, from the well known and glamorous to the obscure and seemingly hopeless, some lessons emerged. Successful cities seemed to have some things in common – visionary individuals, creative organizations and a political culture sharing a clarity of purpose. They seemed to follow a determined, not a deterministic path. Leadership was widespread, permeating public, private and voluntary sectors. It expressed itself in courageous public initiatives and often risky business investments, and in a tissue of interconnected projects whether for profit or the public good.

An appreciation of cultural issues, expressing values and identity, was key to the ability to respond to change – especially organizational culture. The recognition of a culturally informed perspective was crucial to making urban planning work and that no one can shape urban change alone was vital to bridging divisions between disciplines, institutions and public, private and voluntary sector approaches. New forms of alliance had to be set up. Interdepartmental cooperation and corporate working in local authorities alone could not harness urban potential. The distinct worlds of planning, economic, social, educational and cultural policy had not learnt enough from each other to affect their fundamental assumptions, ways of operating and goals. Recognition of the limits of Comedia’s own work persuaded us that successful urban policy and management demanded far more attention to cultural issues and approaches which are creative, holistic, anticipatory and people-based. Sustainable success depends on developing the thinking of policy-makers and urban agents.

The key actors in those places which have exhibited growth share certain qualities: open-mindedness and a willingness to take risks; a clear focus on long-term aims with an understanding of strategy; a capacity to work with local distinctiveness and to find a strength in apparent weakness; and a willingness to listen and learn. These are some of the characteristics that make people, projects, organizations and, ultimately, cities creative.

It is easier to conceive of creativity in individuals or even organizations than in a city which is, by definition, a complex amalgam of diverse people, interest groups, institutions, organizational forms, business sectors, social concerns and cultural resources. Given that the term ‘creative’ itself is not simple, and is still largely associated with the arts and science, it may help if I begin by tracing my personal route to the creative city. Two major issues shaped my understanding of creativity: first the power of thinking and ideas which shape our mindset, and secondly the importance of culture as a creative resource.

THINKING CREATIVELY

We all carry deep-seated cultural baggage – mine is a European mixture, which affects my mindset, thinking, scale of values and enthusiasms. The mix is German, British and Italian. Their characteristic ways of thinking have affected how I have thought about the creative city: readers may sense that these sometimes pull in opposite directions. The more dialectic German approach searches for theoretical frameworks, assesses dynamics, seeks synthesis and the reconciliation of opposites, while the Anglo-Saxon approach is more empirical, highlighting examples and real-life best practice; a subtle imagination and a richer understanding of culture is legitimized in the Italian context.

The fundamental question for the creative city project is: ‘Can you change the way people and organizations think – and, if so, how?’ One response is to highlight the power of our thinking and ideas to create change. Changing a mindset – so that we grasp the need to address urban problems in an integrated way – can be worth a thousand persuasive reports so often seen gathering dust. A mindset is the usual, easy way of thinking that guides decisionmaking and represents the order within which people structure their worlds. One priority was to apply creativity to shift thinking – for example to overcome the habit of thinking in binary opposites which is such a common barrier to imaginative problem-solving.

The Creative City highlights the value of a creative urban climate in transcending narrow thinking. For example:

■ Should urban solutions be conceived by combining a holistic thinking and a categorizing approach?

■ What would a feminine rather than a masculine approach to the city imply?

■ Can rural models of living offer anything to the city?

■ How can a balance be struck between fostering tradition or innovation, allowing drift and spontaneity or concentrating on order?

■ Should instinct-based or rational decision-making processes be encouraged?

■ How much distinctiveness is useful or is the tried and tested more comforting?

■ Does the city need slowing down or speeding up?

■ How can these choices be sorted out so that the city moves forward without destroying the social base from which it has emerged?

To take slowness and speed, there may be a ‘slow’ solution in one circumstance, a ‘fast’ solution in another, something in between in yet another: but a fourth problem might require us to go beyond the ‘slowness–speed’ continuum altogether and find another way of addressing the issue. Careful observation, based on a cultural approach to urban potential, as outlined below, usually suggests the most appropriate ways of dealing with a problem.

A list of binary opposites is not an imaginative way of presenting ideas about a creative city – we have to recognize that these opposites are parts of a broader whole. The Creative City argues that a more integrated approach provides unexpectedly rich solutions. Urban creativity thrives when those in charge can be open-minded and centred, can link the capacity for focus with lateral thinking, can combine practical with conceptual thinking. If these qualities do not exist in one individual they can be present in a team. Urban problem-solving teams need new ways of combining people who like to master one area in detail before going on to another with holists who learn best by mastering the whole picture before filling in the details.

CULTURE MOVING CENTRE STAGE

A further route to the creative city came from an interest in culture. Two significant connections were how cultural evolution shapes urban development and the intrinsic link between creativity and the development of culture.

Much of Comedia’s early work in Britain involved fostering new, independent, mostly urban media. We produced research, feasibility studies and gave advice on the production, distribution and reception of private and community radio; publishing and bookselling; film, video and multimedia, music, design, crafts and theatre industries. We emphasized the value of cultural industries which, as an interconnected sector, are perhaps the fastest growing in modern urban economies. With the decline of existing resource and manufacturing industry, culture was seen as a saviour for many cities in Europe and increasingly elsewhere. In trying to understand the dynamics of the cultural industries and how the cultural resources of cities could be used to maximize a city’s potential, I became increasingly aware of their wider importance and impact.

I also constantly encountered the power of cultural heritage and tradition. Why, in the rush for change, do we find solace and inspiration in the buildings, artefacts, skills, values and social rituals of the past? Is it because in a globalizing world we seek stability and local roots? Cultural heritage connects us to our histories, our collective memories, it anchors our sense of being and can provide a source of insight to help us to face the future.

Cultural heritage is the sum of our past creativities and the results of creativity is what keeps society going and moving forward. Each aspect of our culture – language, law, theories, values, knowledge – needs reassessing as it is passed on to the next generation. ‘Creativity is the cultural equivalent of the process of genetic change’ and adaptation and ‘most new traits do not improve survival chances … but a few do and it is these that account for biological evolution’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, p7). The same with creativity – not all experiments or pilot projects work, yet historically for the cities which have survived their lifeblood has been their creativity which has allowed them to push at the boundaries of tradition. Culture and creativity are intertwined.

Culture is the panoply of resources that show that a place is unique and distinctive. The resources of the past can help to inspire and give confidence for the future. Even cultural heritage is reinvented daily whether this be a refurbished building or an adaptation of an old skill for modern times: today’s classic was yesterday’s innovation. Creativity is not only about a continuous invention of the new, but also how to deal appropriately with the old.

Cultural Resources

Cultural resources are the raw materials of the city and its value base; its assets replacing coal, steel or gold. Creativity is the method of exploiting these resources and helping them grow. The key problem was not how to identify them, but how to limit the imagination, as the possibilities were endless. The task of urban planners is to recognize, manage and exploit these resources responsibly. Culture, therefore, should shape the technicalities of urban planning rather than be seen as a marginal add-on to be considered once the important planning questions like housing, transport and land use have been dealt with. By contrast a culturally informed perspective should condition how planning as well as economic development or social affairs should be addressed.

Recognizing culture as a resource was a personal revelation and thereafter I began to think of cities and assets in completely different ways. Every crevice in the city had a hidden story or undiscovered potential that could be re-used for a positive urban purpose. This led to a new form of urban asset audit. By taking a broad sweep of a city’s economy, social potential and political traditions, we assessed how cultural assets could be turned to economic advantage. How an old skill in carpentry or metal working could be linked with new technology to satisfy a new market for household goods or how a tradition of learning and debate could be used to market a city as a conference venue. We even considered the ‘senses’ of the city from colour, to sound, smell and visual appearance, also taking a broad sweep through mutual aid traditions, associative networks and social rituals as we saw that these could make a city competitive. This approach to the concept of cultural assets made me think of the city as a malleable artefact shaped both by built projects and by activity; I thought of the city as having a personality and emotions, with feelings uplifted at one moment and depressed in the next. The city conceived of in this way was a living organism, not a machine.

Along the way some conceptual tricks were learnt that at first sound simplistic. One was the idea of ‘turning a weakness into a strength’. Focusing attention on how to make the most of a problem reinforced the idea that potential raw materials were everywhere. For example, Kemi, a town in the Finnish Arctic circle, suffered from high unemployment, its industry dominated by a declining paper mill. The main asset was coldness and snow and it built the world’s biggest snow castle whose impact exceeded the wildest expectations. I heard that Glasgow’s tourism officer, recognizing that the city was drier than Iceland, had promoted the city as a kind of Riviera to Icelanders: it was only seeing a group of merry Icelanders drinking in a Glasgow pub that brought the story home.

As the world of cultural resources opened out it became clear that every city could have a unique niche and ‘making something out of nothing’ became totemic to anyone trying to develop or promote ugly cities, cold or hot cities or marginal places. The realization dawned that every city could be a world centre for something if it was persistent and tried hard enough – Freiburg for eco-research, New Orleans for the blues or Hay-on-Wye for book-selling. In identifying urban resources much could be learnt from the Italians renowned for their ‘feste’ or ‘sagre’, which celebrate whatever resource their region is known for from mushrooms to pasta to literature.

It became clear that cultural resources were embodied in people’s skills and talents. They were not only ‘things’ like buildings, but also symbols, activities and the repertoire of local products in crafts, manufacturing and services, like the intricate skills of sari makers in Indian cities, woodcarvers of Bali or dyers of Djenne in Mali. Urban cultural resources are a historical, industrial and artistic heritage representing assets including architecture, urban landscapes or landmarks. Local and indigenous traditions of public life, festivals, rituals or stories as well as hobbies and enthusiasms. Amateur cultural activities can all be rethought to generate new products or services. Resources like food and cooking, leisure activities, clothing and sub-cultures that exist everywhere are often neglected. And, of course, cultural resources are the range and quality of skills in the performing and visual arts and the newer ‘cultural industries’.

MONTPELLIER: A STORY IN SIGNS

A visit to Montpellier showed how simply a city could tell the story of its aspirations. At the airport a sign welcomes the visitor in a dozen languages saying, in effect: ‘Montpellier is an international city’. On the road to the centre are signs announcing tree planting schemes, the use of indigenous flowers in civic beds or the creation of cycle paths; the message is: ‘Montpellier is an ecological city’. Further on, a district with streets named after Alfred Nobel and Albert Einstein, housing companies like Synergy, Diagnostics or Digital indicates a new tech area: ‘Montpellier is a new tech city’. In the central square stands a health screening vehicle symbolically proclaiming: ‘Montpellier is a healthy city’. Subsequent discussions with city officials revealed that Montpellier’s key strategies were to be an international, innovative, ecological and healthy city. Consciously designing an urban narrative into signage revealed the power of using intangibles in urban development.

The Impact of Culture

Culture provides insight and so has many impacts; it is the prism through which urban development should be seen. The cultural industries, hotbeds of creativity, are significant economic sectors in their own right and employ 3–nt of the workforce in world cities such as London and New York or Milan and Berlin. Tourism feeds off culture, yet most tourism focuses on a narrow conception of culture – museums, galleries, theatre and shopping. We could see the positive glow from cultural institutions and how the cultural sector had a direct impact on inward investment by attracting international companies who seek a vibrant cultural life for their employees. In assessing the social and educational impact of culture we saw how they help foster the development of social capital and the organizational capacity to respond to change. Culture can also strengthen social cohesion, increase personal confidence and improve life skills, improve people’s mental and physical well-being, strengthen people’s ability to act as democratic citizens and develop new training and employment routes.

CREATING SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING: HAY-ON-WYE BOOK TOWN, UK

Until 1961 Hay-on-Wye was a fairly unprepossessing Welsh border town, dependent on declining farming and agricultural markets for its economy. Richard Booth owned the half-ruinous castle and started to deal in second-hand books, which quickly filled up the castle, and when other buildings became redundant and went on the market – the cinema, the fire-station – there was always a ready buyer. The idea that a whole town full of bookshops could become an international attraction was before its time. The Cinema Bookshop quickly became the ‘biggest second-hand bookshop in the world’ and was later sold on to a London businessman. By the early 1970s Hay had established an international reputation and there are now 42 bookshops in the town. They cover specialisms as diverse as cinema, the arts, the occult, history, militaria, poetry, children, Americana, philosophy and economics. The pub...