Creative Cities - Theme Cities: Solutions for Urban Problems - page 356

incentives, advertising and branding, as well as the assumption of some of the risks
of development through supporting public-private partnerships that are favourable
to businesses ﻽ However, this is no longer considered enough. In this so-called 'age
of creativity', knowledge and innovation have become key attributes in driving ur-
ban economic development (Peck 2005 ). The new found importance of knowledge
and brain-power over other kinds of economic inputs, has given rise to the need for
new approaches to understanding urban growth, where 'knowledge' is seen as a
necessary addition to the classic locational factors of land, labour and capital. This
has led to such new urban-economic themes as Knowledge Cities (Chap. 11), But
the combination of particular types of knowledge and recognition of the importance
of 'soft factors' in determining the attractiveness of urban areas, especially as re-
lated to the growing cultural industries, has also led to the idea of the creative class
in generating new growth in what are described as Creative Cities. Most recently,
this view has been popularized by the work of Richard Florida ( 2002a , 2005 ) in
the United States, who argues for the importance of technology, talent as well as
tolerance, as the key factors of future economic success. This chapter examines
the lineage of the Creative City concept and its many interpretations, and then fo-
cuses substantially on the interpretations promoted by Florida. His ideas have given
rise to heated intellectual debate, and attracted many critical comments, Yet the
urban policymakers looking for a solution to the challenges generated by economic
restructuring and resultant urban unemployment have often eagerly embraced his
concepts, without considering the kinds of questions posed by Markusen ( 2006 ) in
the comment above.

10﻽2 The Roots of the Creative City

All cities are creative places by their very nature. They are resourceful, produc-
tive, innovative, original, imaginative and, most importantly, should be dynamic.
While the Creative City idea is now something to which a very large number of
city governments explicitly aspire in the hope of guaranteeing economic growth, it
may be understood as a new spin on a very old idea. Successful cities have always
been defined by their creativity and flexibility, especially after the Middle Ages, and
no city at any time has ever had any monopoly on creativity, or for that matter the
good life (Hall 1999 ). However during the Renaissance a new phase of creativity in
some cities emerged, such as the artistic ones in the city states of Italy, stimulated
by the patronage of private individuals and families, like the de Medici family in
Florence. Today the activities of contemporary urban and cultural policymakers
have attracted creative people, such as artists, writers and musicians etc. to par-
ticular cities. Their presence has in turn raised the city profile, bestowed prestige
on it and attracted even greater numbers of talented people, which in recent de-
cades has moved beyond the traditional arts to large numbers in media, advertising
and computing. This basic premise of attracting talented people, sometimes called
'creatives', underpins contemporary ideas of the Creative City. However, the terms