Art; Creativity Citichat 14 June 2002

CITICHAT 23/2002 - 14 June 2002


Cities and Creativity vs “institutionalised sclerosis!

A quick update on JHB ART CITY which I covered originally in Citichat 16/2002. JHB ART CITY is the Outdoor Art Gallery conceived by Wits student Saul Symanowitz and now a public/private project between the City Council; the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA); the Central Johannesburg Partnership (CJP); the Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition (JICBC) and supported by Business & Arts South Africa (BASA). The art competition phase closes today and, as at last night, we already had over 100 entries.(Total eventually received about 170) Next week our selection panel which includes Bongi Dhlomo; Natasha Fuller; Maishe Maponya, Clive Kellner and Monna Mokoena, gets down to the hard task of selecting twenty entries which will be displayed in the city as huge enlargements together with selections from ten private galleries of the best of their South African art. Check it out on our website – www.jhbartcity.org.za – and watch out, because it’s COMING SOON TO A WALL NEAR YOU!

Staying with creativity, a recently published book which offers some fresh and refreshing thinking relative to successful cities and regions is “The Rise of the Creative Class and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life” by Richard Florida. Florida is the Professor of Regional Economic Development at the Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

What is the Creative Class? According to Florida it is a ‘fast-growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce on whose efforts corporate profits and economic growth increasingly depends’. Members of the creative class do a wide variety of work in a wide variety of industries – from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts. They do not consciously think of themselves as a class. Yet they share a common ethos that values creativity, individuality, difference and merit. Florida states that all these people contribute more than intelligence or computer skills – they add creative value and creativity is itself increasingly valued. Therefore, he suggests, the key to econ“t omic growth lies not just in the ability to attract the creative class, but to translate that underlying advantage into creative economic outcomes in the form of new ideas, new high-tech businesses and regional growth.”

In order to measure a region’s underlying creative capability, Florida developed a “Creativity Index”. This index is a mix of four equally weighted factors; the creative class share of the workforce; high-tech industry; innovation measured as patents per capita and diversity measured by the Gay Index which he describes as a ‘reasonable proxy for an area’s openness to different kinds of people and ideas.’

The resultant top ten cities with populations in excess of a million are San Francisco; Austin; San Diego; Boston; Seattle; Chapel Hill; Houston; Washington; New York and Dallas.

The corresponding bottom ten cities are Memphis; Norfolk VA; Las Vegas; Buffalo; Louisville; Grand Rapids; Oklahoma City; New Orleans; Greensboro and Providence.

What can we learn from Florida’s research? Well, in Florida’s words; “ More and more businesses understand the ethos and are making the adaptations necessary to attract and retain creative class employees – everything from relaxed dress codes, flexible schedules, and new work rules in the office to hiring recruiters who throw Frisbees. Most civic leaders, however, have failed to understand that what is true for corporations is also true for cities and regions: Places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail, don’t.” What he is saying is that cities stuck in the old paradigms of economic development “building generic high-tech office parks or subsidising professional sports teams” – have lost their economic dynamism to places more tolerant, diverse and open to creativity!

But it is from his research into what the creative class is looking for that we can learn what our cities need to provide. Talented people, he finds, seek an environment open to differences; creative minded people enjoy a mix of influences – they want to hear different kinds of music and try different kinds of food. They want to meet and socialise with people unlike themselves, trade views and spar over issues. They desire nightlife with a wide mix of options. The most valued options are experiential ones. Interesting music venues, neighbourhood art galleries, performance spaces and theatres. A vibrant varied nightlife, active participatory recreation over passive institutionalised forms, indigenous street-level culture - a teeming blend of cafes, sidewalk musicians, small galleries and bistros where it is hard to draw the line between performers and spectators. They crave stimulation not escape. They want to pack their time full of high quality multidimensional experiences. They value outdoor recreation highly and are drawn to places and communities where many outdoor activities are prevalent. Creative people value places for authenticity and uniqueness. Florida finds that “Authenticity comes from several aspects of a community – historic buildings, established neighbourhoods, a unique music scene or specific cultural attributes. It comes from the mix – from urban grit alongside renovated buildings, from the commingling of young and old, long-time neighbourhood characters and yuppies, fashion models and ‘bag ladies’. An authentic place also offers unique and original experiences. Thus a place full of chain stores, chain restaurants and nightclubs is non-authentic -–you could have the same experience anywhere.”

The warning that Florida provides to civic leaders is that they must stop paying lip-service to the need to attract talent whilst they pour resources into recruiting call centres, underwriting ‘big-box’ retailers, subsidising downtown malls, squandering precious taxpayers dollars on extravagant stadium complexes, trying to create fascimiles of neighbourhoods or retail districts, replacing the old and authentic with the new and generic. Cities inability to or unwillingness to adapt is nothing more than an organisational and cultural hardening of the arteries, the late economist Mancur Olson called “institutional sclerosis”.

How do you build a truly creative community? Florida argues that the key isn’t to be found in recruiting companies nor trying to become the next Silicon Valley. Whilst it is important to have a solid business climate, having an effective people climate is more essential. An effective people climate is found through implementing strategies aimed at attracting and retaining people – especially but not limited to, creative people. “This entails remaining open to diversity and actively working to cultivate it, and investing in the lifestyle amenities that people really want and use often, as opposed to using financial incentives to attract companies, build professional sports stadiums or develop retail complexes.” “An effective people climate needs to emphasise openness and diversity and to help reinforce low barriers to entry.”

The Inner City already contains some of the basic ingredients that are needed. The Inner City already includes a number of individuals that I wouldn’t hesitate to define as “Creative Class”! The Inner City certainly has diversity in abundance. We need to sharpen our focus and attract/recruit the lifestyle amenities that will develop an effective people climate.and market, market, market.

Have a great long-weekend, regards, neil fraser