Sinds eind 2007 wordt in raadstukken omtrent de creatieve en culturele industrie regelmatig gerefereerd aan het werk van de academicus Richard Florida. Volgens Florida is er in post-industriële landen een nieuwe socio-economische klasse ontstaan; The Creative Class, de Creatieve klasse. Deze klasse is, in Florida’s werk, de drijvende kracht achter economische groei.

Het is een goede zaak dat beleid mede wordt gestuurd door wetenschappelijk werk, er zitten echter wat haken en ogen aan het vertalen van het werk van wetenschappers naar beleid. Ik zal eerst omschrijven wat Florida onder de Creatieve klasse verstaat, hoe deze klasse bijdraagt aan economische groei en hoe je deze in je stad krijgt. Daarna wordt het gebruik van de creatieve klasse in het Heerlens beleid bekeken.

Florida hanteert twee definities voor de Creatieve klasse; een brede definitie waarbij iedereen in de beroepsgroepen Wetenschapper, Ingeneurs, Artisten, Culturele Creativelingen, Manager, Professionals en Technici. Bij de smalle definitie zijn technici niet meegenomen. Hij benoemt de mensen in deze klasse ook wel als Talent; zij generen nieuwe ideeën, leiden high-tech bedrijven etc. Florida stelt, in Flight of the Creative Classe, dat bedrijven tegenwoordig faciliteiten opzetten op plaatsen waar talent is.

Om een magneet voor de Creatieve klasse te worden moet een stad hoog scoren op de Creativity Index, bestaande uit de drie T’s; Technologie, Talent en Tolerantie. Deze drie T’s wegen even zwaar mee in de Creativity Index van Florida, voor de VS wordt de Creativity Index op de volgende punten gebaseerd;

• Technologie;
  • Concentratie High-Tech industrie
  • Groei in patenten
• Talent ;
  • Het percentage van de beroepsbevolking behorend tot de Creatieve klasse
• Tolerantie;
  • Gay index (index voor de over of onder vertegenwoordiging van homoseksuele in de populatie van een regio vergeleken met het land)
  • Melting Pot Index (concentratie van in het buitenland geboren mensen)
  • Bohemian Index (relatieve concentratie artiesten, muziekanten en entertainers)
  • Racial Integration Index (de verspreiding van mensen met verschillende culturele achtergronden in een regio)

In Heerlen wordt in september 2007 de creatieve klasse voor het eerst genoemd in een raadstuk, namelijk in de integrale centrum visie:

“Cultuur draagt bij aan de aantrekkelijkheid van steden. Niet alleen voor toeristen, maar ook voor de creatieve klasse: managers, ingenieurs, ondernemers, professionals enzovoort. Vooral veel stadsbesturen in Nederland en het buitenland hebben de indirecte betekenis van cultuur op de economie erkend. Zij proberen hun stad aantrekkelijk te maken en te houden voor deze ‘creatieve klasse’.” (integrale centrum visie (2007))

De omschrijving van de creatieve klasse in dit stuk is geheel correct. Ook de gedachte gang dat de creatieve klasse graag unieke culturele ervaringen heeft (de zogenaamde Street-Level Culture), klopt volgens Florida, zij draagt bij aan de Bohemian Index. Het is echter zeker niet de enige factor, de Bohemian Index zelf, waar de street-level culture aan bijdraagt, dit vormt slechts een van de zeven factoren van de Creativity Index; waar zijn Technologie en Talent gebleven, waar zijn Gay Index, Melting Pot Index en Racial Integration Index?

Na dit, redelijk, goed begin, gaat het echter mis; in de volgende twee geciteerde stukken lijkt het de invloed van een rijk cultureel aanbod op het aantrekkelijk maken van de creatieve klasse steeds verder overdreven wordt:

“Met Richard Florida (The rise of the creative class) in de hand, weten we dat steden met cultuurproducenten, met kunstenaars, met creatievelingen, met nerds en bohémiens sterke steden zijn.

 

Cultuurproductie is daarom belangrijk voor Parkstad. Nieuwkomers en bedrijven vestigen zich in een stad, wanneer daar een divers en evenwichtig hoogwaardig aanbod is.” (Bijlage 1 bij Raadsvoorstel 2008/5569: Prioritering cultuur)

” Richard Florida liet in zijn “Rise of the creatieve klasse” onomstotelijk zien dat steden met goede culturele voorzieningen en met creatieve industrie sterke steden zijn.” (raadsvoorstel culturele agenda van Heerlen 2009-2012, 1-4-2009)

 

De overige zes factoren lijken compleet vergeten te zijn. In andere stukken wordt de mensen in de creatieve klasse gelijk gesteld aan mensen in de creatieve industrie (die, volgens Florida, maar een klein deel van de creatieve klasse vormen):

“Daarnaast zijn de ontwikkelingen op het Business Park Molenberg/C Mill (voormalig Philipsterrein), vestiging van een bedrijfsverzamelgebouw voor kleine (culturele) ondernemers en de ontwikkeling van een productiehuis voor podiumkunsten/urban arts, hoopgevend voor het ontstaan van een aantrekkelijk cultureel en creatief klimaat door de “creatieve klasse” aan de stad te binden.” (Beleid Beeldende Kunst en Vormgeving 2009-2012)

“Sinds Richard Florida (The rise of the economic class) en Charles Landry (The creative city. A toolkit for urban innovators) is bekend dat steden met een sterke culturele en creatieve sector ook in economisch opzicht krachtige steden zijn.” (Actieplan Creatieve Industrie 2009-2012.)

Een duidelijke dwaling van de oorspronkelijke tekst, maar het wordt nog mooier;

“Daarmee [de aantrekkingskracht op hoger opgeleiden door het gevarieerde cultuur aanbod] is SCHUNCK Glaspaleis in Heerlen de grootste speler binnen de creatieve klasse in Heerlen, die steden tot (economisch) sterke steden maakt. Zie Richard Florida The rise of the creatieve klasse.” (Raadsvoorstel Bedrijfsplan Glaspaleis; 23-9-2008)

 

Vreemd, Technologie en Talent gebleven, Gay Index, Melting Pot Index en Racial Integration Index zijn ineens compleet vergeten. Het wordt tijd dat de schrijvers van deze stukken toch Florida eens lezen, ze lijken dit namelijk nog nooit gedaan te hebben.

Waarom wordt Florida alleen aangehaald als het gaat om cultuur? Waarom wordt Florida niet gebruikt als argument om te investeren in Integratie van allochtonen, het aantrekken van buitenlands talent of homoseksuele? Waarom niet om High-tech industrie aan te trekken of om R&D aan te jagen? Of om al aanwezig talent te binden aan de regio.

Om de fel begeerde creatieve klasse aan te trekken is het van belang te investeren in alle drie de T’s; Technologie, Talent en Tolerantie. Alleen zo is Heerlen in staat om een stad te worden met een grote, sterke Creatieve Klasse, en optimaal te profiteren van de economische groei die deze klasse met zich meebrengt.

Er zijn gelukkig andere bewegingen die een positieve invloed hebben op een aantal van de andere factoren die Florida meeneemt in zijn Creativity Index; De komst van o.a. de zonnecellen industrie naar Avantis heeft een positieve invloed op zowel de High-Tech industrie concentratie, op het aantal patenten als ook op de maat Talent (aannemend dat een deel van de medewerkers ook in Heerlen gehuisvest is/wordt). Ook de komst van de nieuwe RWTH campus gekoppeld met betere verbindingen met Aken en het mogelijke huisvestingstekort aldaar kan een positieve invloed hebben op de Talent maat en ook op de Melting Pot Index.

Mogelijk is het verstandig om een deel van de investeringen in cultuur, die gedaan worden met het aantrekken van de creatieve klasse als argument, in te zetten op het hier houden van de vers opgeleide creatieve klasse. Immers als we Florida geloven* trekt Talent zowel Talent aan als industrie. Dit kan bijvoorbeeld door Heerlen te promoten als Forenzen stad, bieden van goedkope kantoorruimte voor starters en het blijven lobbyen voor vestigingen van overheidsinstanties.

* Een belangrijk punt, waar ik hier niet over ga schrijven, is dat Florida’s ideeën niet onomstreden zijn; er is uit wetenschappelijke kringen veel kritiek.

Read this blog yesterday entitled

It got me thinking…then in the evening before going to my bed I did my “motivational” reading cause it is so tough being a creative being in a world where the scientific class rules with its rational state of mind….by the time I finished reading my motivational read I not only felt a whole lot better but I felt that the author had replied exactly as I would if I had not read his brilliant insight first.

Let me being with a summary Mike’s blog and then reply to it by copying/quoting the author of “ZEN and the ART of making a Living”. Mike, of course both BANKERS and Radicals both think Richard Florida is talking to them for ” Talent makes Capital Dance” .  And the word is capital, my friend. The world is dominated by capitalists. Scientifically based capitalism…not natural capitalism…..that is a whole different ball game. Nevertheless lets strip it down to the fact that ideas drive innovation, as Richard also says and without the creative idea or in-spiration you ain’t got nothin” but the same old same old and who is investing in that these days?

oh, yeah, everybody around the globe…you say. Richard says “The task ahead of us,” he tells the group, “is reinventing this system for mobilizing human intelligence, human talent, human creativity.” At first Mike responds with his heart and is game. Then he begins to play the game of anaylsis paraylsis. His rational left brain kicks in and he starts to get cynical and critical and plays the game of either/or either globalization or no globalization. He gets negative.

I recall looking up the source of the word globalization some weeks back only to find the Wikki saying that the idea of such has been around since the time of the Romans. Seems he is also stuck on the word WEALTH. Well, could we just flip into a bigger left brained mindset and use the word abundance or would that take us to the edge of the slippery slope of creativity where there is an abundance of ideas and the idea that our sole purpose is to CREATE. Shockin eh? Big picture thinking…reminds me of art school days/daze where we would debate endlessly the different  philosophies like Sartre’s Being and Nothingness vs Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged….yada..yada…

At that point Richard says…“What if we began to value the 45 per cent of people in Canada in what we call the service economy?” asks Florida. “How do we turn those jobs in coffee shops and nail salons into creative, collaborative jobs?”This gets Mike going again…an interesting idea…but what is the answer?  He states “I don’t know. Maybe someone could point me toward the session on prevention of union busting?” BAM, we are Back to the future rationality of the science of politics…

Me, I go off into a day dream about Zen monks and mindfullness. Clearly I could not debate Mike on his disillusionment for Richards “capital-C Creatives”  idea – although I know only too well where he is coming from. I am glad, however, that he appreciates the fact that Richard has opened the doors of perception, albiet the gates of HELL for some,  for that is the role of the creative mind. “To wake people up”  if I can qo with McLuhan’s definition of the artist.

Let me now share the ‘irrational” creative state of mind response that resonated with me at the end of another money grubbing day. It resonated like a gong at the end of a good meditation session.It is from the book ZEN and the Art of making a Living” by Laurence G. Boldt

“The Natural Art of Human Living”

The Great German author Thomas Mann wrote “Art is the spirit in matter, the natural instinct toward humanization, that is toward the spiritualization of life” Mann’s conception of art as a natural instinct toward humanization, or spiritualization, provides a bridge uniting the fine and the practical arts, the spiritual life with the art of creative living. The impulse to humanize, the movement “toward the spiritialization of life” is the origin of art, the progenitor of all that is noble in the creative arts, in science, in humanitarian service, indeed, in all fields of endeavor.

This conception unites the work of Gandhi with the Japanese tea ceremony, this mission work of Albert Schwietzer with Mozart’s Magic Flute, Navaho sand painting with the great cathederals of Europe , the work of Mother Teresa with that of Albert Enstein with that of the anonymous but devoted local elementary school teacher. All of these are art because they spring from what Mann calls the “natural instinct toward humanization” Setting aside for the moment the issue of the relative merit of these or any other works of art, we can recongize this natural impulse as their common origin.

Following your natural instinct toward humanization is the road to your art, your life’s work. This is another way of saying, “Follow your Bliss”. While we tend to think of art as something for the privileged few, Mann’s conception recognizes art as the natural expression of our humanity. As such, art is not exceptional, but ordinary. In many traditional cultures, it was expected that all people were, or ought to be, artists. In regaining our naturalness, we regain our humanity and our art.

There are significant differences in the relative value of the arts and in the quality of their execution. Nevertheless, there is something to be gained in the recognition of the one impulse that gives rise to all the arts. Major or minor, epic or commonplace, the arts are works of the spirit. They are acts of love that unite and “spiritualize” our lives. On the other hand, Leonardo da Vinci said “Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art”, no matter the virtuosity of the technique employed. All true art ought be celebrated for the sake of impulse to humanity that gives it birth. This impulse is itself the art, it is what makes life worth living and more, than that, a thing of wonder, glory and splendor. (…..or as the dadaist said: “Every thing I spit is ART”…………..)

In their contemplation, the genuine arts call out our humanity. If we study the arts with a view toward recognizing the underlying patterns, the ever-recurring Universal archetypes they evoke, we cannot help but recognize that the GROUND FROM WHICH THEY EMANATE IS THE UNIVERSAL GROUND OF BEING, in which man, the earth, the universe and all things reside. The Ever Becoming of this Being – the grand play of creation in which we are privileged to participate -is itself the Great Art to which all of the lesser arts point. As the sunlight reflects and recalls the Sun, so the radiance of the arts reflects and recalls the Great Art of Infinite Being, Ever Becoming Naturally. “

So be it. Mike if you want an image on that cosmic concept check out my website www.hiddenground.net. Maybe next year I will be lucky enough or privileged enf or have a JOB enf that allows me to attend Creative Spaces and Places. Here’s looking at you kid….

In Hamburg ist Richard Florida gerade großes Thema. Durch die Besetzung des Gängeviertels, dem Künstlermanifest, das überregionale Beachtung fand und dem gelungen gekaperten Hamburg Magazin ist die kreative Klasse in aller Munde. Wie der Spiegel schreibt, heißen die neuen Standortfaktoren Homosexualität und Pop.

Während Kunst und Kultur traditionell eine Randexistenz jenseits des Marktes führten, ist es in den letzten Jahren zu einer gezielten Durchdringung des Bereiches durch den Kapitalismus gekommen. Seit Ende der 80er Jahre zählt Kulturpolitik zu Standortpolitik der Gemeinde. Öffentliche Ausgaben für Kultur werden zu einer Investition. Der Boom von Computer- und Softwareindustrie und die Tatsache, das auch diese, ebenso wie Start- up Unternehmen als Cultural Industries gewertet werden führt zu einer Auswertung des Begriffs der Kultur weg von der „Hochkultur“ hin zu „Copy- Right“.

Im Mittelpunkt der Verfolgten Strategie steht das Diktum Schumpeters, das nicht Preiswettbewerb sondern der Wettbewerb der Innovationen im Zentrum des Kapitalismus stehen. Die Cultural Industries und der ‚Produktionsfaktor Kreativität’ werden zum wichtigsten Wirtschaftssektor vor Hintergrund der zunehmenden Deindustrialisierung. Cultural Industries und deren Förderung werden Teil der Wirtschaftspolitik.

2002 erscheint das Werk von Richard Florida: „The rise of the creative class“. Florida, ein Vertreter der Humankapitaltheorie identifiziert in der Creative Class die Gruppe die ökonomische Entwicklung bringt, dadurch, dass sie die Ressource Kreativität besitzt. Ziel einer guten Politik muss es daher sein, argumentiert Florida, Räume zu schaffen, in denen sich die Kreative Klasse wohl fühlt: nämlich Orte der Toleranz innerhalb der urbanen Landschaft. Kreativität im Rahmen einer kreativen Gentrifizierung wird verdinglicht, wird zu einer Ressource, die im städtischen Konkurrenzkampf eingesetzt wird. Kreativität wird zur Ressource, einer Art menschlichem Humus.

Wie man das jetzt findet sei dahin gestellt. Der Kunstmarkt ist so eine ganz spezielle Marktform – winner takes it all. Wer in ist ist voll drin, der Rest schaut zu. Ob jedoch Eigentumsanteile an Stadtteilen und Häusern wie Florida laut Spiegel vorschlägt nicht eher doch dazu beitragen, die Künstler noch mehr zu instrumentalisieren? Ob die sich nicht missbraucht fühlen? Ich bin auf jeden Fall auf all die Leserbriefe morgen gespannt.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,659833,00.html

http://www.schreberspacken.de/artikel/download-des-magazins-unter-geiern

Credit Gallup

So says a research report from Gallup based on surveys conducted in 135 countries over the last two years. What’s strange is the black and white thinking underpinning the survey. Gallup didn’t bother to ask whether respondents would prefer a world in which they could work, build wealth, and travel back and forth between their native homeland and where ever it is they find employment. Permanence is so final. It ignores the “sea turtle” trend where people leave their homeland (say, China) to study and start a career in the U.S., only to return back home in 10 or 15 years time with much greater human capital.

And yet it is sobering that so many would chose permanent emigration, just the same. The surveys also add some support for the cause of competitive government: 700 million is a huge, untapped, if poorly skilled labor market. These people don’t necessarily want to live in the U.S. or get into the E.U. They merely want a better life. Let us build a floating Hong Kong, or a Singapore in Senegal, and many will come to it.

[Hat tip: Richard Florida]

COME TO THE CABARETS, OLD CHUMS: The Canwest Cabaret Festival, returning to the Young Centre this coming weekend, promises 60 intimate

JOHNSON: cabaret queen

concerts in five intimate clubs. And as usual the musical menu is dazzlingly eclectic. Obvious highlights include The Leonard Cohen Songbook with Brent Carver, Andy Maize, Patricia O’Callaghan, Mike Ross and Elizabeth Shepherd; a tribute to Danny Kaye by Don Francks and Albert Schultz; and solo turns by Ms. O’Callaghan, Jackie Richardson, Molly Johnson, DK Ibomeka and more. Don’t miss a beat — go to the source right here.

LITERATI: Because Douglas Coupland made such a big splash with his 1991 bestseller Generation X, I assumed his new novel Generation A was a sequel.

COUPLAND: alphabet soup?

Wrong. Coupland took the title for his new book from a commencement address delivered to Syracuse University graduates by fellow novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Said Vonnegut: “Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favors when they call you Generation X, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I hereby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.”

Incidentally, Generation A is set in the near future, where bees are extinct, until one autumn when five people are stung in different places around the world — a shared experience that unites them in a way that only Coupland could imagine.

FUNNY STUFF: Big winners at the 10th annual Canadian Comedy Awards in St. John, New Brunswick were stand-up guys (and gals) Jeremy Hotz, Debra

HOTZ: award winner

DiGiovanni and Nathan MacIntosh, TV laugh-getters Jon Dore and Wendell Meldrum, and big-screen stealers Peter Oldring (Young People Fucking) and Samantha Bee (Coopers Camera.) Longtime comedy manager Lorne Pulmutar picked up this year’s Chairman’s Award and This Hour Has 22 Minutes creator Mary Walsh added a Dave Broadfoot Award to her ongoing collection. Biggest bonus for CCA founder Tim Progosh was a request from Deputy City Manager Andrew Beckett to bring the comedy fest back to St. John next year. (Well, okay, the Gemini nomination for his 2008 CCA Best of the Fest Variety Special hosted by Shaun Majumder didn’t exactly hurt his feelings either.)

OUR TOWN: Four Seasons Centre architect Jack Diamond talks with Toronto Star business columnist David Olive about architecture that works,

MAJUMDER: Gemini nominee

tonight at 7 pm in The Bram & Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library … Toronto casting director Jason Knight (Chloe, Cairo Time, Away From Her) guests at ReelWorld’s monthly mixer tonight at Harlem Restaurant … and the third CP+S (Creative Places & Spaces) opens today with Sir Ken Robinson and Richard Florida headlining more than 60 high-profile speakers including Peter Munk, Sara Diamond, Gerry Flahive, Joe Rotman, Allyson Hewitt and outgoing Toronto mayor David Miller. This year’s theme is The Collaborative City and moderators for the 72-hour think tank include Ralph Benmergui, Matt Galloway and Ana Serrano. Should be a very lively three days.

TOMORROW:

Get out your calendars. We’ve got

sneak previews of some becoming attractions.

In Hamburg gibt es eigentlich keine Gentrifizierung. Hier geht das radikaler. Das Gängeviertel wurde nach einer Choleraepidemie im Jahr 1892 Stück für Stück abgerissen – allerdings nicht ganz ohne Grund. Robert Koch schrieb 1892 an Kaiser Wilhelm: „Eure Hoheit, ich vergesse, dass ich in Europa bin. Ich habe noch nie solche ungesunden Wohnungen, Pesthöhlen und Brutstätten für jeden Ansteckungskeim angetroffen wie hier.“ Den Rest, eine Kommunistenhochburg und gleichzeitig inoffizielles Zentrum jüdischen Lebens in Hamburg, planierten die Nazis. Der kümmerliche Rest steht noch, deplatziert und verschämt zwischen Springer-Verlag und Unilever-Hochhaus. Die paar armen Häuser gammeln vor sich hin, weil der Investor, der ein Shoppingerlebniszentrum schaffen wollte, kein Geld mehr hat.

Hamburg im Jahr 2015: Ein Vergnügungspark

Ein paar Schritte von diesem Ort liegt die tote Innenstadt Hamburgs. Das alte Konzept der Trennung von Wohnen und Arbeit, hier verkörpert durch den Bau der Kontorhäuser, wurde, nachdem zunächst noch Wohnbebauung vorgesehen war, konsequent umgesetzt. In der Politik sorgt Konsequenz in ihrer Reinform für Guillotine und andere Rücksichtslosigkeiten, in der Stadtplanung ist es nicht ganz so gefährlich, aber auch schlimm: Tagsüber spucken Büros und Läden, Banken und Werbeagenturen Menschenmassen aus, die eilig durch die Straßen rennen, und um halb neun klappen müde Verkäuferinnen die Bürgersteige hoch und fahren mit der Bahn in die Vorstadt. Nachts sorgen eine Handvoll Hausmeister und Security-Leute für Ruhe und Ordnung.

Noch ein paar Schritte weiter eine Touristenattraktion, die Speicherstadt. Und was uns hier als altes Hamburg präsentiert wird, ist auch nichts anderes als ein geplantes Gemetzel. 1878 forderte Otto von Bismarck 1878 den Anschluss Hamburgs ans Zollsystem des Deutschen Reichs, die Hamburger sträubten sich, denn Zölle hätten den Handel gestört. 1881 wurde ein Kompromiss gefunden: Hamburg durfte eine kleine Freihandelszone, den Freihafen, behalten. Um Raum für diesen Garanten hanseatischer Geldakkumulation zu schaffen, wurde kurzerhand das Quartier auf dem Großen Grasbrook abgerissen. Rund 24.000 Menschen mussten sich eine neue Bleibe suchen – ohne jegliche Hilfe oder finanziellen Ausgleich.

Jetzt, wo der Hafen es sich auf der anderen Elbseite gemütlich macht, gibt es mit einem der größten Bauvorhaben Europas, der Hafencity, eine andere Merkwürdigkeit Hamburgs zu besichtigen. Baut der Hamburger nämlich neu, kann man sicher sein, dass Langweiliges dabei rauskommt. Neue Architektur war hier jahrelang die Bullauge-meets-Backstein-Tristesse von gmp, jetzt ist gerade Glas und Kastiges in Mode, aber eben auch nur halbherzig. Die gesamte Elbbebauung, die gesamte Hafencity: Hässlich bis gähnend langweilig, bestenfalls ok (der Würfelbau gegenüber des Hafenklang). (Ach ja, auf die Elbphilharmonie dagegen, so teuer und überflüssig sie sein mag, darf man sich freuen, weil die Architekten Herzog & de Meuron gut sind.)

Gegen Turbogentrifizierung helfen auch keine dicken Wände

Städtebaulich betrachtet ist das Leben in Hamburg also kein Kinderspielplatz. Und dann noch die Gentrifizierung, die es natürlich doch gibt. Grundsätzlich dürfte der Prozess bekannt sein: Abgewrackte, unsanierte Gebiete werden neu entdeckt, vornehmlich von Menschen höheren Bildungsgrads bei gleichzeitig niedrigem Einkommen, die einen gewissen Pfadfindergeist in sich tragen. Jonathan Lethem hat diesen Prozess in seinem auch sonst tollen Buch „Fortress Of Solitude“ für Brooklyn beschrieben: Die Eltern sind Künstler (Vater malt Filme, nicht gerade ein Garant für Galerie- oder Kinokassenerfolge), Sohn ist klein und einziger Weißer in der Nachbarschaft, Mutter haut irgendwann ab. Das war Anfang der 1970er. 20 Jahre später: Nobelrestaurant neben Nobelrestaurant. Dieser Prozess ist im Grunde genommen ganz normal. Siehe Eppendorf, wo in den späten 1960ern niemand leben wollte. Altbau war unbequem. Das Bürgertum wollte lieber in irgendwelchen vorstädtischen Neubausiedlungen wohnen. Dann kamen die Studenten, gründeten wuschelige WGs. Im Lauf der Jahre wurden sie älter, schmissen die Mitbewohner raus, wurden reich, strichen die Wände, installierten Designeinbauküchen, bekamen ein Kind, bekamen zwei Kinder, und, schwupps, wurde Eppendorf, wie es heute ist. Diesen Weg gingen ein paar Jahre später auch Ottensen und Eimsbüttel. Soweit, so bedauernswert, aber irgendwie ist er ja auch ganz in Ordnung, der Lauf der Dinge. Immerhin nimmt er etwas Zeit in Anspruch,

Den Dingen ihren Lauf zu lassen, ist aber des Hamburgers Sache nicht. Hier hat man sie gerne im Griff. In der Stadtplanung heißen die Konzepte also „Die wachsende Stadt“ (obwohl sie in Wahrheit schrumpft), „Sportstadt Hamburg“ (weil jedes zweite Wochenende ein paar tausend Extremisten 20-mal um die Alster laufen) und „Kulturmetropole Hamburg“ (es gibt zwei Musicalhäuser, einen Schlagermove und die Harley Days). Damit diese Konzepte wachsen und gedeihen, hat man sich in Hamburg für eine Art Turbo-Gentrifizierung entschieden. Ein kurzer Abriss der Projekte, an denen sich die Gemüter derzeit erhitzen: In Altona soll der Frappant-Komplex einer innerstädtischen IKEA-Filiale weichen. Gut, der Frappant-Komplex ist mal wirklich hässlich, aber deswegen gleich abreißen (zumal er gerade sinnvoll mit Ateliers bevölkert ist)? Und überhaupt: eine IKEA-Filiale in der Innenstadt?? Bei der Moorburgtrasse fällt (zumindest mir) die Entscheidung noch leichter. Das im Bau befindliche Kohlekraftwerk ist sowieso schon ein Unsinn ersten Ranges. Um die Energieeffizienz zu steigern, soll nun eine Fernwärmeleitung gelegt werden, unter der Elbe hindurch, wird sie ab Simon-von-Utrecht- / Holstenstraße überirdisch verlaufen und zwar durch die wenigen Parks, die es in dieser Gegend gibt. Widerstand ruft auch das Bernhard-Nocht-Quartier hervor. Direkt gegenüber der Hafenstraße könnten bald ziemlich konträre Mieter einziehen: Dort hat der Investor Köhler & von Bargen eine Reihe von Grundstücken und Häusern aufgekauft und will diese sanieren. Nachdem schon auf dem Gelände der alten Astrabrauerei ein Viertel im Viertel entstanden ist, also eines, das wenig mit St. Pauli zu tun hat, befürchten nicht nur die Anwohner einen weitere verfehlte Aufhübschung des Viertels. Dass die Bahn angekündigt hat, den Clubs Astrastube, Waagenbau und Fundbureau die Verträge zu kündigen, weil die darüber verlaufende Brücke erneuert werden muss, ist dann noch ein weiteres Tüpfelchen – damit schließen drei sehr unterschiedliche und auf ihre Art sehr gute Clubs im eh langsam clubarmen Hamburg. Ach ja. Dann ist da ja noch der kärgliche Rest des Gängeviertels. Der wird zurzeit von einer Künstlerinitiative besetzt gehalten. Große Namen wie Daniel Richter, Friedrich Schirmer oder Matthias von Hartz und auch hanseatische Saurier wie die Patriotische Gesellschaft unterstützen sie dabei, das xte Einkaufszentrum mit integrierten Eigentumswohnungen zu verhindern.

Diese Bänker kennen die Speicherstadt noch aus ihrer Jugend

Nun kann man die einzelnen Vorhaben bewerten, wie man will. Die Gedanken sind schließlich frei und Ikea-Möbel billig. Dass sich aber gegen sämtliche Vorhaben breitgefächerte Aktionsbündnisse formieren, ist in jedem Fall begrüßenswert. Seit der durchgeknallte Richter Ronald Barnabas Schill im Jahr 2001 Regierungsverantwortung übernahm, hat es so eine Einigkeit selten gegeben. Für das Aktionsbündnis gegen Altona-Ikea hat Ex-Szene-Chefredakteur Christoph Twickel einen schönen (wenn auch arg polemischen) offenen Brief an Ikea-Chef Ingvar Kamprad verfasst. Aus dem Umkreis der Goldenen Zitronen (die auch auf einem Aktionstag gegen das Bernhard-Nocht-Quartier auftraten) stammt ein Papier, das sich generell der Idee widersetzt, eine Stadt nach Marketinggesichtspunkten zu planen: „Wir sagen: Eine Stadt ist keine Marke. Eine Stadt ist auch kein Unternehmen. Eine Stadt ist ein Gemeinwesen.“ Stimmt. In diesem Brief wird übrigens auch auf den Städtebau-Theoretiker Richard Florida hingewiesen. Der hatte in seinem Buch „The Rise Of The Creative Class“ behauptet, dass nur Städte wachsen würden, in denen sich die kreative Klasse wohlfühlt: „Cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race“. Das Lustige daran: In Hamburg wird das wieder so gründlich missverstanden, dass man meint, man könne Gays’n’Rockbands durch Reeperbahnfestival und CSD bei Laune halten. Dass es dafür gewachsenen Strukturen bedarf – warum, wenn man doch eine Stadtentwicklungsbehörde hat, die immer mehr zur Eventagentur mutiert? Aber weiter im Text: Gegen das Bernhard-Nocht-Quartier gehen Anwohner ebenso auf die Barrikaden wie gegen Vattenfalls Moorburgtrassenpläne. Klar: Den Argumentationsketten der Gegnerinitiativen haftet eine teils seltsame Bestandswahrungsmentalität an: Wer beschwert sich da? Häufig genug die Leute, die in der Gentrifizierungskette ganz am Anfang stehen. Und ausgerechnet die, die mit dem ganzen Scheiß angefangen haben, holen jetzt den roten Blitz und den schwarzen Stern aus dem Knopfloch und steigen auf die Barrikaden? Aber, wer wenn nicht die? Der Rentner aus der Gerhardstraße, der nach Billstedt ausgesiedelt wird, wohl kaum. Bleibt also zu hoffen, dass wenigstens die eine oder andere Initiative erfolgreich sein wird, denn sonst:

… wird EU-Gesundheitskommissarin Androulla Vassiliou im Jahr 2015 Hamburg besuchen und hernach einen Brief an den Ratspräsidenten verfassen: „Eure Hoheit, ich vergesse, dass ich in Europa bin. Ich habe noch nie solche eine leblose Unterhaltungshölle getroffen wie hier in Hamburg. Man könnte meinen, man sei in einem Vergnügungspark mit Arbeitsmöglichkeiten gelandet.“

That was harsh.  Often his theories are like panacea for people like me.  But for those who aren’t in the white urban know how circle, Richard Florida (American U of T professor in urban studies and author) is the centrepiece surrounding the “Creative Class” movement.  I want to believe what he says almost all of the time, but here is more proof that Richard Florida’s theory that “livable cities” bringing jobs is not that scientifically robust.

[via the Portland Tribune] :

“The city and region have long assumed that investments in quality of life would result in job growth in the city. These investments have succeeded in generating an unprecedented influx of creative talent to the city, but that alone has not created new jobs”.

Read the article here.  I still think a lot of his thoughts on North America’s service/creative economy are correct, but some of his theories on neighbourhoods appear to be falling short.

One of the more exciting things that I’m involved in at this time is the planning and editing of a new book, entitled “Handbook of Creative Cities.” It is to be published by Edward Elgar in 2011 (hardcover) and 2013 (paperback). My co-editors are Charlotta Mellander and Ake Andersson, both of the Department of Economics at Jonkoping International Business School. Charlotta Mellander is a frequent traveler to Toronto, where she is doing research within projects initiated by Richard Florida (in fact, she is used as an example of a “creative class” mother in Florida’s latest book; “Who’s Your City?”).

One of my aims as co-editor is to stimulate discussion about the roles of planning (both public and private) and markets in urban development, and how the balance may shift with the emergence of post-industrial society. To this end, we have invited contributors with different theoretical perspectives, with a possible clash of ideas, which I would find very exciting.

While I don’t want to divulge the identities of the contributors yet, suffice it to say that they are a diverse and creative lot, and they represent the following creative or not so creative cities as residents: Chicago, Copenhagen, Jena, Jonkoping, Kaohsiung, Kyoto, London, Los Angeles, Milan, New York, San Francisco, Stockholm, Toronto, Vancouver, Washington, and Wellington.

As part of the Maverick Speakers Series, UTA is hosting best selling author of the books “Rise of the Creative Class“, and “Flight of the Creative Class“.

Richard has written extensively about what makes a city successful, and the new trends in planning to draw in young talent that helps shape a communities character. His most recent book, “Who’s Your City?“, discusses how deciding on where to live can be the most important decision of your life. Specifically, he draws on the new molds championed by creative entrepreneurs and planners in cities like Portland, Austin, and Boulder, and how the developments they pioneered are quickly being adopted by other communities that wish to stay ahead of the curve. Bicycle infrastructure has been a topic of late that he’s featured in his regular article for the Atlantic.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written here, though not for lack of wanting to. In actuality, it’s more a matter of feeling like I’m not as fully connected to what’s going on as I used to be. I’ve also been sitting on this particular post idea for over a month now, and every time it seemed I’d get the opportunity to work on it, something else arose and stole the time away.

But I digress…On to the proceedings.

There was a time, lo these many decades ago, when products were designed, made, manufactured, advertised, sold and purchased all right here within the good old U.S. of A. But, as we’re all too aware, the only constant is change.

And so, in the midst of this recession (or “economic clusterf&#k, if you prefer), it’s perhaps wise to take a moment and fully absorb the current state of affairs.

The days of stable manufacturing jobs in the United States, the days of “Made in the USA”, the days of buying automotive parts and accessories made just down the road from your house…those days are gone. It should come as no revelation that throughout the last several decades we’ve been undergoing (if not witnessing and acknowledging) a fundamental shift in the basis of the American Economy. We’re no longer the manufacturing center of the world.

And that’s actually a good thing.

The present economic crisis is the culmination of these decades of change – a delayed shift from physical capital and production to a new position within the global economy.

And that position is this – The United States has moved from the central producer of physical goods to the central repository for ideas.

We are now, predominantly, a nation of ideas. We have the greatest designers, engineers, scientists, managers, political thinkers, creative professionals, etc., in the entire world. Some of the best concepts, ideas and inventions were thought up right here in the US. And with the shift to a global economy, and the outsourcing of manual jobs to other countries that desperately needed employment opportunity of their own, the focus here should be on developing that economy of ideas.

One of the wonderful aspects of this shift is that, in an economy of ideas, the potential and the possibilities are limited only by what we can think of. That’s it. We have the technology at this point that, if we can think it up, we can probably make it happen. Solutions to many of the world’s problems could be within our grasp, so long as we are willing to expend our mental capital, and so long as we can learn to be comfortable with change.

The old way simply isn’t cutting anymore. I think the majority of people will agree with that.

Where is the roadblock, then, on our path to enlightened economic recovery?

It should stand to reason that, in order to position ourselves as the new center for innovation in the global economy, and in order to equip ourselves with the ability to maintain that position, we will need one thing – a well-educated nation.

And this is where the difficulty stems from. The decline of our economy will continue and remain in lockstep with the status of our educational system – a status that remains globally lower than it should be. An educational system that is in dire need of an overhaul.

How can we ever expect current and future American workers to realize their full potential in the marketplace of ideas if they aren’t equipped with the knowledge and critical thinking skills needed to present, provide or conceptualize solutions to old and new problems?

The only way to do that, and to provide for opportunity in a new type of economy, is to ensure that everyone has an adequate, basic educational foundation to build on.

We must, first and foremost, address the educational deficiencies that are holding us back from fully capitalizing on the opportunity that lies before us – the opportunity to once again become a global leader, just in a new category.

The President’s call for more training and education is not only justified, but makes complete sense when understood in the context of this economic shift. But the education system needs a major update as well in order for us to make use of it and come out the other side prepared for the challenges ahead.

Both the economy and the education system are big problems. And they require big fixes. They desperately need an influx of new ideas and new ways of addressing their deficiencies.

But that’s what we do here. We think of stuff. We come up with solutions, and then we make them happen.

The phrase “put on your thinking caps” has never been more necessary or appropriate.

(Note: Thanks to author Richard Florida, whose piece “How the Crash Will Reshape America” in the March, 2009 issue of The Atlantic provided not only great reading material on my flight to Portland, but also the inspiration for this post. And perhaps more to come.)

I read Richard Florida’s 2008 Who’s YOUR City? book, a “self-help” book about the central importance of where we live and the outsized opportunities in the world’s leading mega-cities. Drawing from Jane Jacobs and a wealth of statistics, Florida analyzes how the world has become “spiky” with concentrations of innovation and economic activity in mega-regions. Despite globalization and technology, place has become ever more important for individual happiness and economic growth.

For individuals, Florida argues that the choice of where to live is the biggest factor in our lives, happiness and communities. And for urban leaders, his writing and consulting describes how to become a magnet for the creative class and economic growth by promoting the arts, tolerance, talent and technology.

Tokyo is the largest mega-region, with 55 million people, and appears to far exceed all other mega-regions in the innovation map below. There are many other interesting maps on his website, although heavily focused on the United States and Canada.

Since Florida is increasingly focused on sustainable urban living, it would be interesting if he can correlate urban plant and biodiversity levels with human happiness and economic activity. Somehow I imagine this is a topic he will be investigating soon.

According to Richard Florida, director of the Martin Prosperity Institute and professor of business and creativity at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, there is a statistically significant relationship between drug use and unemployment. He finds that the use of illegal drugs is positively correlated with state unemployment (.31). When he looked at marijuana and cocaine use, the correlations were even higher (both .36).

(Click to enlarge)

]]> http://architectureboston.com/2009/08/20/industrial-strength/ Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:42:16 +0000 bsaab http://architectureboston.com/2009/08/20/industrial-strength/

When creativity is your stock in trade, there is strength in numbers.

PARTICIPANTS: Karl Baehr PhD is the director of the business and entrepreneurial studies programs at Emerson College. He was named one of the top professors of entrepreneurship in the country by Fortune magazine in 2007. Beate Becker is the director of the Design Industry Group of Massachusetts (DIGMA). Nancy Fitzpatrick is the chair of the Berkshire Creative Economy Council. The owner of the Red Lion Inn and Porches Inn (in Stockbridge and North Adams, Massachusetts), she is also vice chairman of The Fitzpatrick Companies, parent company of Country Curtains and Housatonic Curtain Company; a partner in Evviva (a women’s apparel boutique); and owner of Fuchsia Inc., a designer and manufacturer of home furnishings made from recycled clothing. Matthew Morrissey is the executive director of the New Bedford Economic Development Council. Elizabeth Padjen FAIA is the editor of ArchitectureBoston. Jason Schupbach is the creative-economy industry director for the Massachusetts Office of Business Development. Beth Siegel is the president of Mt. Auburn Associates, an economic-development consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Anita Walker is the executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Carole Walton is the manager of Create Boston, an economic-development initiative of the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Greater Boston is home to the second largest industrial-design community in the country. Largely invisible to the public, industrial designers (also known as product designers) are responsible for the design of mass-produced products from consumer goods to computers and high-tech equipment. Above: Zarafina Tea Maker, designed for Jarden. Design: Continuum; West Newton, Massachusetts. Photo by Sal Graceffa.

Elizabeth Padjen: I’ve come to think of the Creative Economy as the purloined economy — something that’s been hidden in plain view. It’s been with us for a long time but hasn’t really been considered a cohesive economic sector until recently. As a result, there seems to be a lot of confusion about definitions — everyone seems to have a different opinion. There’s the cultural-tourism piece, which has to some degree hijacked much of the public understanding of the Creative Economy in this state. There’s the “applied art” definition — putting creativity and the arts to some functional purpose. That would include architects, landscape architects, graphic designers, product designers. But it also includes advertising, film, videogames, and media — the reach of this sector into all aspects of our lives is remarkable. And of course there is an enormous population of what might be called “embedded creatives” — the people who are tallied up as working in the financial or life-sciences sector, but are writers or designers on staff. What accounts for this confusion? What exactly is the Creative Economy?

Beth Siegel: The concept is relatively new. Even a decade ago, people tended to look at the importance of the arts and culture in an economy in terms of economic-impact studies — such as reports comparing the presence of cultural institutions to a sports stadium. In the late ’90s, Mt. Auburn Associates was commissioned by The New England Council and New England Foundation for the Arts to look at the cultural economy of the entire region. We believed it was a sector that should be examined as an industry, just as we look at biotech or the software industries. Somehow that led to the terminology “creative economy.” We defined the Creative Economy as having three elements: creative industries, a creative workforce, and creative communities. We started to look at industries in which creative content defines competitiveness — much the same way people have defined technology industries broadly to include biotech and computers and software, because technology is the common competitive element of those industries.

The idea of innovation and creativity and entrepreneurship as a core part of the Massachusetts economy is not new. Michael Dukakis was promoting this back in the 1970s. What is new is that we’re looking at a set of industries where the creative content is the defining element. That is where we get some blurriness in thinking about the word “creativity.” But there’s really no right or wrong definition.

Karl Baehr: The common element among all the various definitions of the Creative Economy is not only the presence of innovation but also the power of ideas. Our economy is getting lighter: we’re going from steel to software; we’re seeing physical GDP decrease; patent activity has increased 75 percent from 10 years ago. Innovation and the ability to monetize ideas are at the heart of just about all of these definitions.

Anita Walker: Something else that distinguishes this industry is that it embraces the nonprofit sector, which other industries typically do not. So our symphonies and our theaters are part of an industry that also includes a commercial or profit-making sector.

The common element among all the various definitions of the Creative Economy is not only the presence of innovation but also the power of ideas. Innovation and the ability to monetize ideas are at the heart of all of these definitions. Karl Baehr PhD

Elizabeth Padjen: My impression is that people initially thought of the Creative Economy as comprising only the nonprofits, the cultural institutions. The recent push has been to make them understand that there is also a for-profit component. Is that dichotomy still there?

Beth Siegel: When we began our work, we realized that the old divide between nonprofit and commercial really didn’t make sense anymore. There are too many hybrids — such as museums running retail shops — and the sectors have merged. For example, we tend to think of the media industry as for-profit, but it includes National Geographic and NPR, which are nonprofits. The focus is the product, not whether it’s delivered by a for-profit or nonprofit.

Karl Baehr: The business functions are essentially the same whether it’s a for-profit or a nonprofit entity. Some of the mechanics and strategies are different, of course, but you still have to operate effectively.

Anita Walker: The nonprofits enthusiastically embraced this broader notion of the Creative Economy because they understood the value of being perceived as a significant part of the economy by state legislators and those who fund their work. Being seen as a real economic engine rather than just a nicety has made an enormous difference over the last several years.

Nancy Fitzpatrick: We’ve been lucky in the Berkshires to have a long tradition of art and culture. Everybody there has come to realize, especially over the last 40 or 50 years, that our nonprofit cultural organizations contribute incredibly to our economic vitality, and also to fostering the creative communities. But not everyone is aware of the role that the for-profit creative businesses play. It’s still really important to bring these two sectors together in people’s minds. For years and years, state government has been geared toward a different kind of industry, and a lot of politicians and policy-makers still don’t understand what the for-profit creative industry contributes. There’s a lot of work to be done.

I’ve recently become aware of the importance of homebased businesses to the Creative Economy and the economy as a whole. My parents started a home-based business, Country Curtains [now a mail-order company with retail shops in 12 states]; I confess I had to be convinced that it is in fact part of the Creative Economy. The Creative Economy doesn’t necessarily develop products only for the most sophisticated people. It also produces things that mainstream people feel comfortable with and love, things that are sold at a very affordable price. We really have to embrace everybody. Tattoo artists. Doily makers. Anybody who can make a living by doing something that is creative.

Main Streets with cultural institutions and artist live/work spaces have intrinsic value as vibrant places to live. But they also have an economic value in that they make a community that is attractive to talented people and, therefore, to employers — some of whom might not themselves be part of the Creative Economy. Anita Walker

Jason Schupbach: We’ve seen a sea change in just the last year around the way this state addresses the Creative Economy. We already had one of the most advanced Creative Economy policies in the country supporting the nonprofit sector through the work of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Now we are also developing a complementary policy around the for-profit creative industries, because they often do have different needs. That’s what resulted in the creation of my job. I have counterparts in the Office of Business Development who focus on the manufacturing, life sciences, IT, clean energy, and defense industry sectors. By creating my job, Governor Patrick has said the creative-based businesses, such as entertainment — which includes film, TV, videogames, music, and publishing — design, digital media, and advertising businesses, are every bit as important to the state’s economic growth as those other industries. We want to make sure that the for-profit creative industries are aware of the resources we have for them right now, and we want to understand what we should be doing in the future to develop these parts of the economy.

Beate Becker: I believe the more important debate is the question of creativity versus innovation, and why the Creative Economy is different from an Innovation Economy. I really want to stress that, when we’re talking about the Creative Economy, the creativity is about creative content. For example, engineers are creative, but they’re not producing creative content. Creative content is based in culture or the senses: song, drawing, theater. The economist Richard Florida has brought attention to the notion of a “creative class,” but his class is so inclusive that he’s talking more about a knowledge-based class. He includes accountants and lawyers, who certainly use their minds, but are not necessarily creative workers. They’re different from actors or graphic designers.

Elizabeth Padjen: Along with the idea of a creative class, we have to give credit to Richard Florida for popularizing the understanding that creativity has a physical component — that some places nurture creativity better than others.

Anita Walker: Our understanding of what we call “creative communities” is already expanding. Main Streets with cultural institutions and artist live/work spaces have intrinsic value as vibrant places to live. But they also have an economic value in that they make a community that is attractive to talented people and, therefore, to the companies who want to employ them, companies that will bring jobs and wealth to a community. And of course some of those companies might not themselves be part of the Creative Economy sector.

Elizabeth Padjen: Some cities have been quick to understand this. New Bedford, for example, has been getting great press in the last year as a community that is trying to develop its creative sector as a way of defining itself. Matt, what were the roots of that initiative?

Matthew Morrissey: About three years ago, we were pitching a foreign company that was considering New Bedford for a new manufacturing facility that would employ more than 600 people. We were on the short list and had developed a package of incentives that made us as competitive as any other place in the world, really. Halfway into the presentation, the site-location consultant stood up and said, “Wait a second. I get all of this, but I’m originally from Newton, and I can’t imagine building a workforce in the city of New Bedford.” We had it all, but we were saddled with an outdated perception of the city. And ultimately, we lost out.

So we had to do our homework. The mayor and I sat down and asked, What is it about that experience that encapsulates the challenge facing New Bedford? We don’t sugarcoat the reality of a city like New Bedford, but we wanted to figure out how we as a city could use our assets to better tell our story. What came forward was the sense of place.

The idea of the Creative Economy works pretty naturally for New Bedford. For 10 years now, AHA! [Art, History & Architecture, a cultural organization] has been promoting the possibilities of New Bedford to the scores of people who come to its free Downtown Cultural Nights on a regular basis. And when people sense possibility, you inspire their imagination. It is a very important part of retaining folks who are more educated and more prone to civic engagement on their block, in their neighborhood, and at other levels of government. If you can tell that story to a large enough population, eventually you hit a couple of investors, a couple of site locators, and CEOs.

The direct economic impact of businesses in this sector, however we define it, is real. We have 48,000 jobs and 2,300 businesses in the city, and about 10 percent of that can be attributed, in a broad sense, to the Creative Economy. The Creative Economy isn’t going to become our largest employer. But we know that it can be an enormously important, if not the most important, inducer of job creation in the city of New Bedford.

Anita Walker: This has important implications for public policy: cities like New Bedford, Pittsfield, and Worcester — and, of course, Boston — have recognized that they want the Creative Economy to be part of their city plan and have named individuals who are part of city government to coordinate these efforts. They understand that it’s about business development, but it’s also about community development. You really need a holistic approach.

Nancy Fitzpatrick: Something that we’re grappling with in the Berkshires is the fact that there is no leadership. In cities, you have a mayor who sets an agenda and pushes for it; you can go talk to this one person. But in the Berkshires, we have two cities and 31 towns, and the towns usually have volunteer leadership. There might be one overworked, underpaid town manager, aided by salt-of-theearth elected people who are doing their jobs for nothing. You have to try to raise their awareness about the assets that they often don’t even know they have.

One of the additional challenges that the Berkshires faces is that there’s so much traffic across the borders with Connecticut and New York, in terms of where people live and work, but also in terms of business relationships. We need to find resources that will support this reality. If, for example, we get a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, we can’t use it to support a Connecticut enterprise.

Beate Becker: That is an enormous challenge for New England in general; there are many cross-border opportunities. A maritime trail, for instance, doesn’t stop at the Massachusetts borders. Nor do the clients or employees of a design firm. How do you find something effective that’s more of an overlay, that crosses towns and states without political jurisdiction? And though we don’t have a real answer for that, I think that Massachusetts has started to pursue an effective model, focusing on industries themselves as the overlay. The film industry, for example, cuts across jurisdictions, as does the design industry.

Jason Schupbach: Some regional organizations are stepping into this role. Berkshire Creative is certainly one, and the Creative Economy Association of the North Shore has also emerged as a real leader.

Karl Baehr: I think New England has other challenges. I came to Boston from Santa Fe, which is one of only a handful of UNESCO-designated Creative Cities. I sometimes think people here have to overcome feeling bad about monetizing their creativity. But there are also regional differences that parallel some of the differences Beate mentioned earlier between innovation and creativity. A famous example is Xerox Corporation, back in the beginnings of Silicon Valley in the ’70s. Xerox hired a bunch of high-bohemian, high-tech kids from Berkeley and Stanford. These kids considered themselves artists. It was actually Xerox that invented the mouse, the scanner, the fax machine, the graphical user interface, all that stuff that we’ve attributed to Apple. But the reason Xerox didn’t monetize it was completely cultural — a disconnect between West Coast high-bohemians and East Coast boardroom suits and ties. Xerox would never sell anything called a mouse.

But there’s a corollary to the Xerox story: as we consider what a developed Creative Economy could mean, we should also include its influence on creative thinking in other sectors as well. Can you imagine what the MBTA [Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority] would be like if we had a creative thinker in there anywhere? It would be a radically different organization.

When I listen to President Obama talk about green jobs and high-tech as a priority, I wonder why the Creative Economy isn’t being mentioned in that same context. Carole Walton

Beate Becker: I recently visited Switzerland, which is pursuing some very exciting initiatives. The Swiss are actively bringing together schools of art and design with schools of technology, developing joint curricula and joint laboratories, with some extraordinary results. I’m really concerned that we’re not doing enough of that here. Yes, there’s the MIT Media Lab, but that’s one little node. There’s tremendous potential, particularly in the Boston area, for technology companies and design companies to do much more collaboration, both in classroom laboratory settings and in commercial settings.

Nancy Fitzpatrick: We need to take advantage of the naturally collaborative tendency of younger people: I see it in my own children and the people I work with. There are no barriers. There are no secrets. People aren’t possessive about their ideas. They share openly. These young people have a new view, and I think it’s going to have an enormous, positive influence.

Carole Walton: We can try to support that tendency by providing programs, places, resources — whatever it takes — to encourage cross-pollination. The BRA [Boston Redevelopment Authority] is currently exploring the development of an incubator building for people working in the creative sector.

Jason Schupbach: Metro Boston has the advantage of having so many creative people in a relatively small area. We’re seeing a lot of “bump” or “spark” events that get all the creative people in a room to see what happens. Real collaborations and business deals are coming out of these meetings.

Elizabeth Padjen: One of the problems we often hear is that the creative people tend not to be joiners. Or they join organizations that were conceived of years ago that don’t recognize the sorts of blurry borders we are discussing here. If we have architects who are also doing textile design and Web design and God knows what else, there’s no God-Knows-What-Else Association for them.

Beate Becker: DIGMA [Design Industry Group of Massachusetts] addresses exactly that problem. It’s an association that’s been heavily supported by the state, with seed funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and the Boston Foundation — a significant investment in what they see as an emerging design cluster. DIGMA’s goal is to bring creative people together to create a common identity and voice, people who are unified by the fact they are all designers despite their individual skills and expertise.

Jason Schupbach: DIGMA is especially valuable because of the exposure it provides for the industry. Most people have no idea of the size or range of the design industry in Massachusetts or how many companies are right here doing amazing work. How many people know that Greater Boston is home to the second-largest product-design community in the country? Look at a firm like Continuum, which is based in West Newton, Massachusetts, with offices in Seoul, Milan, and Los Angeles. They have a billion-dollar product-design wall, with three or four products they designed that have made a billion dollars each.

Massachusetts is actively promoting entertainment-based industries, which the state Office of Business Development defines as film, TV, digital media, videogames, music, and publishing. Local institutional resources, such as WGBH, WBUR, MIT Media Lab, Emerson College, Berklee College of Music, and Mass College of Art and Design — among many others — have fostered a creative community that is at the forefront of new entertainment media. Above: Arthur. Creator: Marc Brown Studios; West Tisbury, Massachusetts. Image courtesy WGBH.

Beate Becker: Visibility is a very important thing. Here’s one simple thing that could be done by the state: Terminal E at Logan Airport, the international terminal, is featuring an exhibition called “Science Swiss.” It consists of 25 panels of beautiful photographs and stories of scientists in Switzerland doing incredible work — everything from entomology to geology to genome projects. I walked down there and thought, Wow, this is beautiful graphic design, beautiful photography, beautifully written. All sorts of creative skills employed in the presentation of the stories of these scientists. And I said to myself, Why are the Swiss advertising in Boston’s Logan Airport? Why isn’t Massachusetts advertising Massachusetts creativity and industries in Massachusetts airports? We can make better use of existing resources to promote our Creative Economy.

Matthew Morrissey: There is another kind of visibility that also has enormous value, which comes through the film industry. There’s the promotional aspect, of course — tourists see Boston in a movie and want to visit. But just as important is the promotional aspect for the residents. New Bedford has had 15 shoots in the last 24 months — all of them small, for indies and cable. But the value for us isn’t so much in the money spent by the crews. It’s in the impossible-tomeasure pride the whole community feels when someone says you’re valuable enough to film. When you’re dealing with Gateway Cities that have been in a virtual depression for 50 years, you can’t overestimate the energy that is created. Film provides a validation — you’re cool! — that in itself promotes the Creative Economy.

Carole Walton: One of the things that we’ve done with the Create Boston program is to identify the creative industries in Boston that show significant growth potential. For the last three years, I’ve been focusing on the videogame industry, increasing awareness of Boston as a digital-media hub and laying the foundation for its continued growth. People are now viewing Boston as a videogame hub; there are currently about 76 companies located in and around Boston. We created the first game-industry steering committee, pulling in video companies from around the state, and convened focus groups to learn more about the challenges facing the industry. They told us that they needed a way to better communicate with each other and asked if we could develop a website. We applied for and received a grant from MCC to do just that.

When I listen to President Obama talk about green jobs and high-tech as a priority, I wonder why the Creative Economy isn’t being mentioned in that same context. A lot of it has to do with us not marketing ourselves properly, as an industry and as a place. Boston needs to re-brand itself as the fabulous, creative epicenter that we truly are.

Karl Baehr: If Boston’s really going to be a creative city, we’ve got to understand what’s important to these people who aren’t joiners. As a city, we need to be creative comprehensively. Not just in terms of infrastructure like roads and WiFi. We need to be creative with bureaucracy. We need to create an environment that we can market. Boston is one of the greatest cities for entrepreneurship in the country. The creative minds are here, but they leave. Why is that? Because we have yet to create this genuine creative environment that these folks are looking for. They’re looking for stimulation. They’re looking for individuality. They’re looking for openness. They’re looking for something beyond a job, something beyond even a career. It’s cultural.

Jason Schupbach: I would like to debunk the myth, though, that all creative people are outsiders. I think that’s almost completely false. If anything, they’re very interested in being part of a community of people who have similar interests. One reason why international companies are starting videogame companies here in Massachusetts is because we have the fourth largest gaming community here, and they want to be part of that community and connect with the talent that’s already here. It’s a highly networked community where everybody knows each other. That is what people are really looking for when they’re looking to be part of a creative industry.

Carole Walton: It’s important to remember that the whole gameindustry influx here was not organic. It was part of a definite strategic plan. All of a sudden Boston is seen as the premier location for videogame events, but that didn’t just happen overnight.

Elizabeth Padjen: What do people who are starting Creative Economy businesses want most? What do they ask for?

Carole Walton: They’re looking for affordable space. They’re looking for funding. They’re looking for an opportunity to be with other folks in creative industries who think the same way they do.

Jason Schupbach: The BRA has been really innovative on that front — it’s one of the few entities in the country that actually started a fund specifically to support Creative Economy businesses.

The connection between affordable, interesting space and the Creative Economy shouldn’t be overlooked. One linkage that would create enormous opportunity would be to lift the current $50-million limit on the historic-preservation tax credit. Matthew Morrissey

Carole Walton: We also have Marine Industrial Park, which is owned by the BRA, and right now we’re creating a cluster of creative businesses there. So we can give them space at an affordable price and get them all together in that environment.

Matthew Morrissey: The connection between affordable, interesting space and the Creative Economy shouldn’t be overlooked. One thing that the current state administration does very well is to understand linkages, and one linkage that would create enormous opportunity for the Creative Economy in cities outside Boston such as New Bedford would be to lift the current $50- million limit on the historic-preservation tax credit. When you look at the seven states that have uncapped historic-preservation tax credits, you see an enormous spike in investment capital. When you dig deeper, you discover that the Creative Economy is fueling a huge part of the demand for space in historic buildings — businesses and nonprofit offices, residences for the people who work in them, and services for the residents and businesses. I think we would see similarly enormous spikes here in terms of redevelopment of old mill buildings. I’m working on a 300,000-square-foot mill project right now that would house a printing and digital-media firm, a high-tech firm, and artist live/work space. About 200 jobs, many of them in the Creative Economy, would be brought in or created as a result. But holding all three of those interests together over a period of two or three tranches of funding under the current historic tax credit program might be too hard. No one’s fault — that’s the system. But if the cap were lifted now, that building would be filled.

Elizabeth Padjen: Except for Gateway Cities like New Bedford — the former mill cities of Massachusetts — this region is not known for affordable space or affordable housing. How can we be competitive relative to other regions of the country?

Beate Becker: If we’re debunking myths, I want to debunk the one that people leave because of affordability. Where do all these creatives go? They go to New York and San Francisco, which are not exactly havens of affordable real estate.

If you ask people what they need and why they move, the answer is jobs. Work is the real issue. It’s not just about educating creative people and getting them in a room together to generate a lot of ideas. If there is no market for those ideas, for those companies or products, then they can’t continue. That’s an issue that we’re especially seeing now, with creative industries taking a big hit in this economy. If people aren’t buying those services and those goods, it’s a problem. So it’s not just about growing the Creative Economy itself, it’s about growing the demand for the Creative Economy.

You do that in part by developing awareness of the added value that design can bring to an industry. Introduce designers to healthcare people and raise the issue of return on investment. What’s the value of design to healthcare? Ask Apple the value of design, or Procter & Gamble. That billion-dollar wall at Continuum? Continuum developed the Swiffer for Procter & Gamble. Getting the other industries here — healthcare, financial, bioscience, high-tech — to employ creatives is what will keep people here. We’ve got the talent. We need the work.

Massachusetts is considered a hub of footwear design. Brands with local presence include Reebok, New Balance, Puma, Clark, Stride Rite, and Saucony — as well as many smaller companies. The footwear industry employs many in-house designers, as well as independent product designers and footwear design consultants, who often also design for well-known fashion labels. Above: Puma Hawaii XT. Design: Puma; Westford, Massachusetts. Photo courtesy Puma.

Elizabeth Padjen: And in fact, if you look at the websites of many local product-design firms, in addition to what you might expect — household goods, electronic devices, consumer goods — you will find an astonishing number of sophisticated medical devices, which is no accident.

Beth Siegel: That’s right. There are some fascinating crossovers, such as a company in the Berkshires that used to do computerized special effects for the movie industry that now employs 100 people doing medical simulations for the life-science industry.

Anita Walker: I also want to do a debunk. Every state worries about the brain drain. The fact of the matter is, young people move. One of the distinguishing features of the Creative Economy is that it’s highly mobile. It’s not agriculture, which is stuck in the ground; or fishing, which is stuck in the ocean; or oil wells, which are under the ground. You have to accept the mobility factor and work with it.

Nancy Fitzpatrick: I concur with Anita. I cringe every time I hear the president of Berkshire Community College say that we need to keep our young people in the Berkshires after they graduate, because I as an employer do not want to hire somebody to work at the front desk of Porches who’s never been anywhere else, who can’t get him- or herself down to New York and back. I think it’s great that new people come and young people go; they might come back and they might not. Mobility is something that we need to learn to value; we don’t necessarily want to keep people where they grew up. That’s almost un-American.

Elizabeth Padjen: In this economy, a number of people are launching businesses on their own, but what do they really know about entrepreneurship? It may even be worse for creative people, who often seem to believe that being creative and being successful in business is oxymoronic. On the other hand, the Creative Economy seems to present an opportunity to create a different business model — to work in very fluid ways that are outside traditional corporate structures. Karl, your students come to Emerson because they have a love for some kind of creative endeavor. How do they respond to the idea of entrepreneurship? How can we encourage creative people to think about the opportunities that they have in the business world?

Karl Baehr: The fundamental problem is that rule number one of business — “it’s business, not personal” — does not apply to an entrepreneur. It’s very personal. It’s not their business education that compels them to put their life savings into a business and work 15 hours a day, 12 days a week to make a go of it. What motivates them is the passion for an idea. And the moment that inherently right-brained, artistic, emotional element enters into the equation is when an entrepreneur can get off track. So you have to do the reverse: artists can already envision the house that they want to build, but you have to teach them how to use a hammer and nail, and when it’s appropriate to use a screwdriver, and what the pliers do. Those nuts and bolts — the law, management, learning how to network and partner, communication, finance — are all essential. Artist-entrepreneurs come to realize that, in order to make their vision become real, they need to learn these things, just as they need to learn how to use Pro Tools software if they’re musicians or a paintbrush if they’re illustrators. It’s the same creative passion; it’s just a different tool. And that makes it less foreign to our students. Our program is full, because our students realize that there is this thing called business out there that they need to understand.

This economy is a great time to be an entrepreneur, to be in charge of your own destiny. It’s especially true of those who are part of the Creative Economy. What better way to make your way in the world than by doing what you love and creating something, whether it is software or art or music? And understanding enough about how to navigate the waters of business allows you to do that. “Brain lateralization” is the technical term: it’s making the right brain work with the left brain, and learning how to shut off the right brain just long enough to say, Wait a minute, I’m injecting too much of my emotion into this; I need to think a little more critically. Because the passion can blind you.

Anita Walker: We can’t disconnect the Creative Economy from K-12 education. If we relegate children to rote memorization and high-stakes testing, they’re not going to be ready for the Creative Economy of the future. Increasingly we’re seeing art and music squeezed out of the curriculum in favor of high-accountability subjects. These kids will need to be both critical and creative thinkers, to be comfortable with ambiguity and with tackling a problem that doesn’t have a right answer and has never been solved before.

Jason Schupbach: Another important piece of the youth workforce-development picture is validation — helping parents understand that if their kids are interested in videogame development, for example, they can have a job in it someday. Sometimes people don’t know that these are real and, in many instances, high-paying [jobs]. Economic-development folks can create the jobs but we need people to fill them. We have some empty jobs locally in the Creative Economy even now. We can’t staff every firm that wants to come here.

Elizabeth Padjen: John Maeda, the new president of Rhode Island School of Design, said that one of his great challenges is dealing with the parents’ reaction to a kid who wants to go to art school.

Beth Siegel: It would really fill a gap if all the art, music, communication, and design schools got together and asked, “How can we help people understand the occupational opportunities?” — and then took that show on the road to high schools. Because, I can tell you, high-school counselors are not telling these kids about the career potential of these creative disciplines.

Cities, regions, even entire nations, are pursuing the Creative Economy. What can we learn from Singapore, Glasgow, and Ogulin?

By Tom Borrup

Successful economies have always been creative. Why is this 21st-century Creative Economy any different? Global exchanges and the clashing and blending of cultures have been documented and analyzed for at least 10,000 years. Technological innovations affecting all of society resulting from aesthetic curiosity (or “art for art’s sake”) can be traced back at least as long. Likewise, cultural tourism — people traveling to learn and explore, as well as to trade and exchange ideas — isn’t new either. Nor was Richard Florida, the economist who popularized the idea of the “creative class,” the first to notice that economic prosperity and concentrations of creative people go together.

So what makes this era so special?

In a word, speed. We communicate across the globe at the speed of light. We, and our goods, move across thousands of miles overnight. Global cultures blend daily in the workplace, on the streets, and at the farmers market. Artists and inventors blog, create, and reinterpret in virtual and physical space 24/7. Innovation — the fuel for entrepreneurs — and the drive to find and experience the new have been with us since the dawn of civilization. Now, they are in our faces, at our fingertips, and changing before our eyes like never before.

“New ideas must use old buildings,” wrote Jane Jacobs. However, the Creative Economy requires more than old buildings, artists, bohemian neighborhoods, and tourists. Cities, urban regions, and small towns looking for sustainable creative economies in a global marketplace must also look at their social and community fabric — things that do not change overnight. They need to examine their: clarity and authenticity of place (“brand identity”); civic and corporate cultures and institutions; ability to adapt to constant change; capacity to welcome and integrate new and different people and ideas; and ability to cross boundaries and find synergies between industries and disciplines.

Contrary to many notions and fears around globalization, success is not found in homogenization. Cities and regions that are able to distinguish their brand and build on unique skills, products, services, natural resources, and other assets are more likely to succeed. Creative branding or identity development is increasingly critical for places as much as it has become for products. More than a PR campaign, good branding requires finding widely shared authenticity rooted in the history, people, and evolving story of place.

The Croatian community of Ogulin with its castles, magical landscapes, and local literary figures reasserted its brand based in history and authenticity. Renowned for the fairy tales that were written there, the community has become a cultural tourism destination and has reignited its intellectual and creative energies, thus reinvigorating its self-esteem and its fortunes. In contrast, Hamilton, New Zealand, ignoring its indigenous heritage and agricultural roots, is trying to re-brand itself with the slogan “From Cowtown to Wowtown.” A likely flash in the pan.

Healthy civic and corporate cultures make an enormous difference. Chicago is a city that works — even if its political capital is tightly held. A diverse economy and inclusive civic institutions have kept it growing and stable. Similarly, visionary and effective leadership is credited with reviving the UK’s Newcastle Gateshead area, inspiring citizens, attracting investment, and assembling successful Creative Economy elements. On the flip side, rife with corruption and the inability of their leaders to fully motivate and engage people, are the cities of New Orleans; Bridgeport, Connecticut; and Camden, New Jersey — which only look good next to Cartagena, Baghdad, or Nairobi.

Over the past couple of decades, the Scottish city of Glasgow has transformed itself with new industries and trade partners for at least the fourth time in its history. Meanwhile, Detroit and Flint, Michigan struggle massively to adapt to changing conditions. These US cities were literally built around an industry cluster, markets, technologies, and labor strategies whose relevance has waned.

While still a young metropolitan region, Silicon Valley and its urban center, San José, demonstrate enormous capacity to integrate new ideas and people through a cluster of industries that have morphed a couple of times in as many decades. The business and social construct of the “wiki” emerged there not only as a functional tool to incorporate the best ideas quickly from across the globe, but also as a way of re-thinking how business is organized. Welcoming people and cultures from around the world, San José also exhibits one of the highest rates of minority business ownership among major American cities and has perhaps the most diverse mix of small and medium-sized nonprofit arts and culture organizations. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, Creative Economy proponents lament the resistance to newcomers among the native-born and see evidence that xenophobic attitudes have clogged the city’s economic development pipeline.

Creating synergy across disciplines and sectors can be seen in some of the most productive small and large places. Legendary college president and Tennessee Valley Authority architect Arthur Morgan wrote about his small Ohio college town of Yellow Springs in 1953. In addition to one of the most concentrated and active small arts communities in the US, this village of 3,500 spawned businesses producing innovations in aluminum casting, seed hybridization, industrial design, and high-precision thermostats as well as water-monitoring devices, industrial surface-plates, high-stress rubber bearings, and the first-known EMT training program. The remarkable list goes on. Morgan concluded these industries sprouted from a quality of life that included interdisciplinary education in which both art and science were central, inclusive racial and labor relations, and a highly engaged civic community. Morgan was perhaps the Industrial Age’s Richard Florida. By contrast, and on a wildly different scale, Charlotte’s massive banking industry leaves that city in a precarious position in what is essentially a one-industry town.

Cities and regions looking for sustainable creative economies in a global marketplace must also look at their social and community fabric — things that do not change overnight.

A report published in February 2009 by the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts predicted that the creative sector in that country will grow at an average annual rate of 4 percent during the next five years — more than twice the rate of the economy as a whole. It will employ more people than the financial sector by 2013, or as much as 7 percent of the workforce. (Similar data have not been studied for the US.)

Too many US communities hoping to tap this growing sector have fallen for easy solutions. City after city has rushed into a simplified version of Richard Florida’s three Ts, trying to attract Talent and Technology and showing little understanding of Tolerance. But clusters of “creative class” workers and the industries they populate are not enough.

This temptation to oversimplify, and thus misunderstand, the Creative Economy is common. In many US cities, institutional arts interests have dressed up the Creative Economy as a way to garner more money for the arts. A healthy creative community is a necessary ingredient for a healthy economy — as are healthy civic and corporate cultures. However, big symphonies, operas, ballets, and museums full of Renaissance paintings do not necessarily encourage creative behaviors among residents who come from all parts of the world, nor do they excite most young high-tech workers.

Similarly, cultural tourism alone is unlikely to transform an economy — apart from Orlando, Florida, a place dependent on a couple of California-based corporations. While their theme parks are unlikely to go anywhere in the foreseeable future, if and when they do, the region will need more than Ghostbusters.

Looking for quick fixes, some cities have tried to re-package creative industries, promoting “creative clusters.” Others have fashioned or built bohemian enclaves or arts districts to attract young hipsters. Clusters may fuel a raging engine for the short term, but cities that have focused on one product have not fared well over time. Their precipitous declines have been as dramatic as their rising fortunes. Clusters can be significant parts of an economic mix if they operate in a creative and permeable environment and interact vigorously with other industries and sectors.

Still other cities have put all three together — a robust arts community, a “cool city” image, and a cluster of creativity-based businesses. In some places, this has made a difference. A community with healthy self-esteem, where people get along and work together to accomplish civic ends — a community that can pull off this three-part strategy — already has in place most of the needed ingredients and is on the right path.

But an even more sophisticated understanding of the mechanisms that drive creative economies requires an even broader, more holistic view. Two countries, with very different histories and cultures, have recently embarked on initiatives that merit attention. Seeing the need to maintain a balance between strategies and assets, both Sweden and Singapore have articulated plans for nurturing their creative industries. In a nation not well-known for tolerance, Singapore’s National Arts Council prescribes the “5-C” plan to heighten the creativity of this already prosperous nation. Culture, Competency, Connectivity, Capital, and Conditions provide the framework it hopes will ensure a perpetual place atop the economic food chain. A program laid out by Sweden’s Knowledge Foundation has many parallels: Education and training, Research, Industry, Business collaboration, and Arts/Culture. This “ERIBA Model” is based on a circular approach of stimulating creativity and the arts, providing the forums, cross-sector research, and collaborative systems that allow business and industry to gain from innovations and innovative behaviors. Both Singapore and Sweden are thinking in terms of larger systems that embrace all their assets.

This is the challenge that faces Massachusetts today as it considers its Creative Economy. While Boston has reinvented its economy several times by drawing upon its key assets of geographic location and intellectual capital, it has also lost out on opportunities because of its tightly held culture, as AnnaLee Saxenian demonstrated in her 1994 book Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128. Boston’s 19th-century business models, rigid proprietary practices, and paternalistic corporate culture, she argued, did not provide fertile ground for invention, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial enterprises. Meanwhile, a very different and open environment took off in Silicon Valley.

But the Boston region, indeed the entire state, is today a very different place from what it was in 1994. The economic growth of the last 15 years has coincided with the expansion of entire industries — biotechnology, videogames, new media — that did not exist a few decades ago, that have brought with them fresh faces and fresh business practices. The corporations that once ruled Boston are largely gone — sold or relocated. Demographics have changed, with a larger immigrant population. Greater Boston is not Silicon Valley, but it is not what it once was, either. It is much better poised to do the necessary work — to examine and promote its identity, functional capacity, adaptability, inclusiveness, and synergies — and to invent the necessary means. After all, what’s a Creative Economy without creativity?

Tom Borrup is the principal of Creative Community Builders in Minneapolis. The former executive director of Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, he is the author of The Creative Community Builder’s Handbook and is a faculty member at the UMass Amherst Arts Extension Service.

Photo caption: Glasgow is internationally recognized for the success of its strategic focus on the arts and culture to revive a declining post-industrial economy. Since its designation as European City of Culture in 1990, the city’s promotion of arts programs and investments in cultural institutions have built upon its historical and educational assets to transform the Glasgow “brand.” Designated the UK City of Architecture and Design in 1999 and the UNESCO City of Music in 2008, Glasgow today enjoys a healthy, diverse economy. The city’s marketing office reports that Glasgow has been called the UK’s “hippest and most happening city” by Travel & Leisure magazine and “one of the top three business centers in Europe” by Fortune. Photo by Robert Pool.

On Wednesday night I watched the CBC Dragon’s Den – a Canadian show in which entrepreneurs pitch hard nosed, trump like investors. It became apparent in this airing that these Dragons seem to know very little about “The Secret”.  Just when you thought that everyone has heard of “The Secret” you realize that there are a lot of wealthy people who “just don’t get it” .  That makes me stop and wonder how they created their wealth in the fist place and how long they will keep it.  Frankly, I am sick to death of sweet, supposedly healthy energy drinks…..don’t they know by now that unless it is fresh there is no energy in a bottled drink. Except I guess the sugar. Hey, what can I say, I am LOHAS, hard core, one of those 50 year old mavens who are taking Facebook by storm and an artist to boot! I prefer “ionized water” and macha tea.

Nevertheless, I found most of the ideas presented to be lame and forgetable -with the exception of one that was, well frankly, unforgetable, I have been thinking about it ever since. It was from “a company called Creo Mundi, a Canadian based company that sells intentional clothing. That’s kind of a clever idea. What they have looks like just a regular t-shirt or a sweatshirt on the outside, but imprinted on the inside are positive words from all different languages. So when you put it on, you know what’s on the inside and so you have this private intention that’s on you.” http://bit.ly/5cy66.

The judges/investors/dragons, however,  were not impressed. They cajoled the idea and in effect said, “What the BLEEP? “ They were totally thrown off by the whole idea and said that it was ridiculous for the two women, who ran the “positive lifestyle” company,  to pursue it although it was clear that they were passionate about the idea. In the end they all said  “forgetaboutit, stick with the energy shake”- The shake is their oher product. The one that I would never buy!  At that point, I said quietly to myself  ” What Would Google Do?”

I’ve been thinking about it and If there was ever a piece of clothing that is a “open source” platform waiting to happen this would be it! I think that they should run with it -  but it needs to be tweaked to make it more social, more techie, more user friendly. I suggest that they hire me to make  a viral video around the concept and target Florida’s “Creative Class” with the intention of creating a world wide rave. The distribution should be thru the internet, selling entirely online custom one offs, on demand – just in time shirts, can be designed by the customer. The customer after seeing the viral video would be insprired to go to the site, create an account and enter the words and phrases that resonate with them. They would choose the shirt style and color and then design the INNER SHIRT  for themselves!  A set of affirmations, favorite quotes or  or just single words that inspire can be placed where ever they want on the inside front and back of the inner shirt. When they are happy they hit submit and check out and it comes in the mail super fast like my “I saw it on CNN” shirts for Obama did.

Your custom designed words remain invisible to the outside world, which can be so cruel when it comes to spirituality, but empowers you the wearer in ways unseen. Way cool  to be a hidden mystic, wearing black techie outer gear to the Google office while on inside you know you have penned a new age spirtual mantra to your higher self all over the inside of  your bamboo luxury shirt!  Once we have the techies on side I suggest a move to custom yoga grear, then mediation gear and so on…..where does it end in the new age of spiritualism? who else can we convert?  The Dragons themselves one day? if we sell enough, no doubt. Ladies, it was clear to me, after all was said and done, one thing ” What the bleep do we know?”

The world population is projected to hit 7 billion sometime during 2011. That’s quite a number of people on an already stretched world. But I believe we could easily sustain that amount of people, even the 9 billion expected around mid-century, I think, would be manageable.  The key to managing this growth over the next decades will be planning.  In every sense of that word.  But most importantly, planning for our cities to allow for the vast influx of people while maintaining a good-quality, yet wholly-urban, life.

I should give you another fact regarding life at mid-century: 90% of us will live in cities (up from 50% in 2007).

If you look at graphs of population density (like the following), you see that really we are not evenly distributed over the entire land mass, but cluster in relatively small areas. Richard Florida calls it the Spiky world and its only getting spikier and spikier (but with fewer and fewer spikes)

The problem will be politics.  Politics (and unfetted capitalism) will make it impossible for agreement ever to be made on what the best approach for the future will be.  Instead, the usual suspects will squabble over the spoils of a rapidly changing, disintergrating planet and leave the rest to rot.  Tad dramatic?  Ah well, I’m gonna leave it.

peace

I’ve been working in my local community to help fuel a movement to designate a portion of the city as an “Arts and Culture District.” The goal has been to get the myriad of arts and culture organizations in the city to join forces to actively promote and grow into a more cohesive community that can be marketed as a destination for visitors looking for that kind of experience. 

A secondary, unspoken goal is to create an environment where the ”creative class” that exists can be encouraged to flourish and expand.  With that, the hope that the economic benefits of more services and products required to support such a population can benefit the entire community.

It’s got me thinking what it takes to create an art and culture scene in any given location.  Can it be planned and encouraged or does it have to happen spontaneously? Which comes first?  And is this elistist thinking? 

Kwende Kefense posits in “What’s in a Scene?” on the CreativeClass.com blog that cultural scenes may often be the deciding factor in what kind creative talent can be attracted and retained in any given region. 

Richard Florida, father of  the creative class concept contends in Who’s Your City that deciding where one lives is one of the most important decisions anyone makes, and quality of life and cultural scene have a huge impact on that decision.   And some of the statistics he has gathered are suprising!   What’s your city’s “Bohemian Index?”

Listen for the comments about what constitutes true creativity in this video clip.  Not education, not affiliation–but  openness to all kinds of experience.