Advanced Introduction to the Creative City

The "The Creative City", published 20 years ago by Charles Landry (2000), has rightly started a triumphal procession around the world. More books on the subject followed. (e.g. Landry 2006). The concrete effects of the author's impressive crusade for the Creative City are unclear, but when architects, planners and cultural managers talk about creativity and urban development, Charles Landry is always mentioned as its "inventor". He only occasionally has to share his reputation with Richard Florida, who invented and branded the "creative class" at about the same time (Florida 2004), but has meanwhile turned his attention to the urban crisis in US American cities, after neglecting it for years, when praising the creativity of the elites in US American cities.

 

 

The enthusiasm for the creative city has declined because hopes for broader political support for cultural activities and for the creation of new post-industrial jobs in the cultural and creative industries have not really been fulfilled (Kunzmann 2017). Nonetheless should the new book by Landry, who is well versed in building bridges between theory and practice and bridging national planning cultures, once again help to keep his worldwide readership on the ball, and to ensure that the love of the creative city expressed by many local governments is not quickly to put aside. In 16 chapters, the author summarizes his experience gained from countless projects, conferences and seminars in many places where he has been active over the last 20 years, in Australia and Taiwan, Helsinki, Bilbao or Berlin. In doing so, he draws on writings that he has published himself since 2006 (Landry/Hyans 2012; Landry 2016; Landry/Murray 2017; Landry/Cause 2017) and with which he has penetrated ever deeper into the creative urban world. After reflections on creative and less creative cities, the author describes how he approached the topic, how the creative city has become a paradigm of urban planning, what he sees as the quality of cities and what he understands by creativity. 

 

 

In this new book he attempts to answer five questions in particular that are repeatedly asked by those who not only take note of and refer to the creative paradigm, but who want to create it a strategic model for urban development from it: Is gentrification an inevitable consequence of urban policy strategies to promote the creative city? Has increasing digitalization already overtaken the paradigm of the creative city? Are smart cities also creative cities? Which local milieu promotes creativity in a city? How can the creativity of a city's administration be improved?

 

For practitioners working in the field of urban development it is no wonder that the paradigm of the creative city favours gentrification processes, especially when revitalising run-down city centres and creating new uses for brownfield sites as part of urban renewal strategies. A section of the book is dedicated to this dilemma (pp. 113ff.). Landry acknowledges that a city cannot avoid gentrification if it wants to promote culture and creative actors in order to make a city more attractive to the "creative class", to investors, the media and tourists. But, as the author writes between the lines, a city must deal with this dilemma creatively, based on local rationales. That doesn't help much. The dilemma deserves even more reflection, because it receives much political and media attention in cities, which have to cope with and address gentrification processes.

 

 

In another section of the book (pp. 134ff.) the author deals with the many temptations and seductions of smart digitalization for urban development. He knows that the smart city has become a challenge for the creative city. But even here the book gives little further indication. It merely states very diplomatically: "Perhaps the future of creativity in this world will be enhanced by shutting off and detoxing digitally", i.e. that the urban society will have to detoxify itself from digitisation in a creative way occasionally (p.142). After the Corona pandemic this will be even more difficult, but Landry unfortunately does not broach the issue of the creative potential of digital formats as it currently can be seen.

 

The section on the psychology of a city (125 ff.) is an excursion into the complex psychological or even emotional relationship between the city and its inhabitants and actors. What significance do local milieus have? What role does the "sense of belonging" play? What makes a city a home? This is a reference to the inherent logic of cities. Here the author refers to cities such as Ghent, Adelaide, Bilbao or Trieste, each of which has its own "city personality", and to his "city personality index" with which he wants to evaluate this intrinsic logic. On his website he elaborates more on the psychoanalysis of cities: "Psychoanalyzing a city brings together a range of tools from different branches of psychology, urbanism, anthropology and cultural development as well as mental health practice to bear on the challenges and reveal the opportunities facing a city. The psychological techniques include: behaviourism, conflict resolution, therapeutic assessment and healing as well as advances in neuroscience." And he of course invites his readers (and cities) to use the advisory services of his think tank.

 

 

In another section (p.144ff.), Landry reminds us that the creative city needs a creative administration in order to implement and enforce innovative development strategies. But it remains an appeal, for here too Landry fails to give satisfying answers on how local administrations can act creatively in times of globalization, digitalization and populism. 

 

A final chapter (pp. 151ff.) is dedicated to his ambitious attempt to define a holistic creativity index, i.e. to develop indicators that can be used to measure the creativity and, above all, the dynamism of a city. The index, which is presented only briefly in the book, covers just about everything that makes a city what it is, from accessibility to tolerance, from entrepreneurship to vitality and political leadership. At the same time, it warns against popular city rankings because it knows by whom, for whom and according to what criteria such rankings are created.

 

 

The curious reader will soon realize that in the course of the individual sections of this book, Charles Landry, not surprisingly, moves further and further away from his original concept of the creative city towards reflections on what a city should and can be, what its soul is, its identity, and on what local cultural historical potential this identity is based. All of this makes the book a real pleasure to read, even if not all of his urban explorations and answers to the worldwide discourses on the creative city, urban renewal, gentrification and digitalization can satisfy planners, arts managers and politicians who want to make the city a more sustainable place to live. Charles Landry is not a city planner, but just as Jane Jacobs used the example of American cities and masterfully articulated the concerns and desires of their urban society over 60 years ago with great worldwide impact, the author understands how to describe the spatial and cultural qualities of the city in an easily understandable way without using the academic language of sociology.

 

In his earlier books, Charles Landry, an equally inspiring speaker and excellent photographer, has creatively underscored his statements with wonderful photographs. Unfortunately, the publisher did not use this in this book. It should do so for the next edition. 

 

The book is not an instruction manual on how a city can become creative or even more creative. As the author himself emphasizes, this can only be realized on the basis of local potentials and be by the city’s creative actors. But it is a book that provides extensive advice and argumentative checklists and can immensely inspire planners, arts managers and cultural politicians how they can make their city more creative and more liveable. This makes the book very worth reading.