Creative Class

Pier Giorgiho Di Cicco, the Poet Laureate of the City of Toronto, on the future of cities (hat tip: Amanda Styron).  It captures the essence of  the creative community, its great potential, its contradictions, and the challenges we all face. Read it and share your thoughts.

The creative city is more than just innovative. It manufactures an
appetite for life. It respects the random, not just as new information
for design, but as the currency of civic allowance. People will not
volunteer their ideas if they live in the regulated environment of
gentrified enclaves, free only to exercise imagination in front of
computer screens.

All this to say, that a knowledge economy depends on knowing the roots of creativity.

Innovation falls under the banner of creativity, and creativity does
not occur where there trust is lacking in social capital.

The job of
generating civic trust is in the hands of governance, innovators,
entrepreneurs all those who understand that civic spirit is the engine
of a good economy,

In the future all cities will be distinguished by one thing only.
The nature of their enthusiasm. IT, virtuality, globalization, consumer
isotropy will make all cities equally enticing to tourists and
investors. Though it will appear that a city is attractive because of
certain types of technology, the city wants to attract people who not
only specialize in those technologies, but who see that city as a
livable place with a strong creative ethic.

An aesthetic of the city is more than its expertise in innovation.
Besides which, innovation begins on the street in the casual genius of
civic encounter. A city that is not creative in all sectors cannot hope
to be creative in some sectors.

Wealth generation is limited when wealth is not seen as a product of civic allegiance. The
very word allegiance sounds archaic. Does it still have a place on the
competitive stage? People need to belong, to a work place, a community,
a way of life. Out of that emerges love and loyalty. A city with these
qualities is a perpetual motion machine. It is prosperous because it
has city spirit. This spirit is seductive to investors and visitors. It
makes for a livable town.

Collaboration is not how a city is made Collaboration exists by converging alliances and partnerships, often
provisional. It is a transactional model. The job of making a city
cohere in spirit is about loyalty, is about joining together.

When business is the interest, the most intelligent thing is to
re-invest in the spirit that made invention possible– the city. And
that spirit in turn, becomes the engine to economy.

The creative city is more than just innovative. It manufactures an
appetite for life. It respects the random, not just as new information
for design, but as the currency of civic allowance. People will not
volunteer their ideas if they live in the regulated environment of
gentrified enclaves, free only to exercise imagination in front of
computer screens.

All this to say, that a knowledge economy depends on knowing the roots of creativity.

A
knowledge economy is more than information. It  isn’t seduced into the
quick harvest. It doesn’t barge on insight before insight has had a
chance to flower. A knowledge economy understands that the outsourcing
of design is at an end, if the design of the architecture between
citizens isn’t attended to.

And the architecture between citizens is very vulnerable in the
future city. It is negotiated space that we live in. It is not
adventure, but security that has become the municipal zeitgeist.
Surveillance, excessive protocol and proceduralism are  becoming the
ambience of urban life. In such an environment, it won’t belong before
innovation is demoted to merely new-level growth.

The factors accomplishing this are many. I would suggest to you
that the lack of civic and national commonality accounts for colonies
of life styles, ideologies and extremist positions that bewilder the
field of policy. The industry of appeasement is replacing the industry
of civic care. The ethic of entitlement replaces the ethic of
sufficiency, and though this may appear good for capitalism, it spells
bad news for sustainability.

Many are the dangers for the future of cities, But the worst thing
that can afflict a city, even in its apparent prosperity, is the
deterioration of city-soul, that which inspires citizens to
self-identity and mutual recognition. Its recovery depends on (1)
seeing another citizen as a resource of sacrifice and not just as a
resource.  (2) using the concept of innovation as a forum of shared
wonder and delight.  (3) seeing the city not just as opportunities of
networks, but as a gracious forum of encounter and unexpected
intimacies, with gratitude for what that city has yielded.

With these elements recovered, we are guaranteed creative cities
and competitive cities, because we will have cities that will have
stayed human.

The task of business and governance is to enact a psychology of
creativity with a credible benevolence, beyond the machinery of
excitement, acquisition and entertainment. For just as there is an
ecology of environment that demands more than the short term solution,
there is an ecology of the human heart that demands a faith witnessed
in and by the most talented members of our society.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Cities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.