home > programme > break out session 11
A new agenda for creative cities
March 18 13:00 - 15:00 - Zuilenzaal
Speakers: Bert Mulder (Lector Information, Technology and Society) & Stephen
Graham (Professor of Human Geography); Moderator: Charles
Landry
Richard Florida and Charles Landry have put the concept of the creative city firmly on the public agenda. But a creative city is more than re-developing industrial icons into creative hotspots. And it also means more than having rich cultural resources to attract the talent of the creative class towards the city. We have to develop the concept of the creative city and turn this into actions.
Florida himself comes up with tolerance and diversity as success factors that need to be taken into account. Landry stated in his address that we need to focus on the cultural resources as the core of innovation in the city. In this perspective, every city in the world has a niche that planners can help to develop around specific cultural resources. How do we do that, keeping in mind what Stephen Graham has put forward that cities are changing as global urbanization trends interact with the intensifying use of digital media in social, economic and cultural life. The changing infrastructures in networked cities call for new strategies for urban planning and innovation, both in the physical world and in the design of the public digital domain.
The 'creative city' concept points at a new paradigm for urban change, and a new agenda for cities in the knowledge economy. What then are the necessary conditions and successful strategies for making cities into creative cities? How to organise an environment where the local cultural resources can be harnessed? This challenges us to develop strategies to manage different kinds of creative developments in the city. In this session the new public agenda for creative cities is being discussed. First, Michiel Schwarz will ask Bert Mulder and Stephen Graham about what challenges they see in this respect. Then a debate among the participants will take place in an effort to formulate elements of this new public agenda.
