From Hamburg, Sydney, Ottawa, Copenhagen to Atlanta

Back to business again after a relaxing weekend in Hamburg which was such a nice city. Or maybe nice is a too lame expression, creative could be more suitable. 

Creative or just a mess?

Previously in my blog I though that creative city would be a stupid expression. Actually, I still think it is, but at least it got a new meaning today at Alf Rehn's lecture.It is maybe not so easy to understand as creativity on personal or organizational level since a creative city always is a mixture of different cultures and interests.An expert in his field, author Charles Landry for example stated in one of his books (2008) that characteristics for a creative city include risk taking, widespread leadership, a sense of going somewhere and being strategically principled and tactically flexible. Should we believe him?  For example being a creative city does not mean that the city would have to come up with something new. Much of creativity deals with finding a balance between new and old ways of working and with determining when a change is needed. The most creative solutions are often combination of the old and new. I find this quite interesting and I must say that I agree with him. In Hamburg for example, there was one really good example of this: bike renting. It was done extremely easy and you could reach the whole city with your bike. Bike renting as such is of course not so creative but it can be seen as an example of a creative solution for decreasing the amount of traffic pollution in the city. The renting, or actually the loaning process was made as easy as possible with the help of the latest technology even if the idea itself was not so new. I felt so happy when riding my bike in the sunshine. Creativity almost poured out of me. Yep, yep. 

The Hamburg's understanding of creativity (photo from Hamburg.de)

Creativity depends much on the surrounding circumstance and the context which of course in natural. The above mentioned bike hiring would probably not be so creative in Alaska, where the roads are slippery almost the year round. 


Much of this creativity talk is still for me too self-evident and does not bring so much new to the table. Maybe not many of you would be surprised if I (or any author or lecturer) would say that open-mindedness and capacity to listen would be the most important conditions for creativity. You don't have to be an expert to realize that. But this is as well a bit contradictory. For example the school system is criticized to be too systematical and pragmatic institutions with only a small space left for creativity. But what is the purpose of school? To educate sophisticated and rational human beings. Teaching the French revolution cannot be so creative, or?. But what about establishing a new subject in schools called creativity? It could be a class without a structure. A class where everybody could present their most silliest and craziest ideas. At least I would have needed in school something like that. My innovation and creativity was always pressed down as concentration difficulties or joke making. Everything had to be so organized and systematical, and creativity was accepted only on handicraft lessons. Not to wonder why I ended up studying economics. 


Why should we even be interested about the concept creative city? Why is it even relevant? A nice answer would be: because in creative cities people are more happy and there it is nicer to live. Well, maybe the case is not so black and white. Basically all city and infrastructure planning have as purpose to create a creative city. It has economical, social and psychological value. Creativity enhances tourism and even the economical life when companies rather have locations in cities with "a creativity image". This is logical. Think about surfing or skating brands such as Roxy or WESC. Their brand image corresponds maybe better to the image that creative cities such as Sydney or LA have. 


I must say that I am still a bit confused with this concept. I understand the meaning of a creative city in theory but I still have difficulties to understand why not all cities could be creative. At least in their own way. If creativity is almost impossible to define it can practically be almost everything. Wouldn't it then be logical to say that every city is creative. The only difference is how you define creativity. Or, is it so?


I think I must discuss this topic more tomorrow after some creative dreams :)

You can read the literature used for writing this here (Charles Landry (2008) Creative City: a toolkit for innovators) and  here ( Susan Luckman, Chris Gibson & Tess Lea (2009): Mosquitoes in the mix: How transferable is creative city thinking?