Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
centres of creativity really are, given that the world's great cities have always been
centres of innovation and creativity. For example, Hall (
2000
) had previously sug-
gested that even if all of the type of factors identified by Florida above is taken into
account, and so-called Creative City strategies implemented, creativity cannot be
produced overnight. The specific geographical and historical trajectory or tradition
of innovation in each city ought to be studied, but this is ignored in the 3T's cross-
sectional analysis of Florida. Indeed, this is part of the issues that others, such as
the ACRE (Accommodating Creative Knowledge) research team based at the Uni-
versity of Amsterdam, have explored in developing a better understanding of the
specific contextual conditions that support and generate creativity (ACRE
2006
,
Musterd et al.
2010
). They have reviewed the features that generate what they
describe as creative-knowledge growth, identifying the key factors of path-depen-
dency of previous history, place-making and networks. In addition, something that
has been given little attention within the geographical and planning literature on
Creative Cities and Classes is the developed world emphasis of this theory. It could
be argued that the debate so far has simply ignored the reality of cities in the world
where secondary production remains a central component to economic survival,
such as in India, Brazil, and some Asian cities, although some of the countries and
cities are now competing successfully in innovation with places in the developed
world. Moreover it is also worth asking about creativity further down the occupa-
tional scale, for example that associated with the bottom-up, small-scale creativity
of craft workers and street traders etc. They are much in evidence in the cities of
developing countries, so there ought to be room for them in the current creativity
and creative class debates by academics and policy-makers. All these points need
to receive more attention in coming years as the contemporary critiques on the is-
sue based only on the developed world exhaust themselves.
10.5.2
The Creative Class and Urban Development:
Unproven Causality
Perhaps the most fundamental flaw with the Creative Class theory and its implica-
tions for urban development is that there is no evidence to suggest that a causal
relationship exists between the creative class and economic development, as shown
in early research by Montgomery (
2005
) and McCann (
2007
). Moreover, the pres-
ence of the Creative Class alone is not a sufficient driver to explain urban success
or growth. While Florida's indices may pick up on factors that he believes define
Creative Cities, they do not necessarily explain their growth. In a range of studies,
different authors have tried to replicate the creativity index or to test other possible
causal factors for economic success. The same conclusion has emerged from almost
all of them: it is not the size of the Creative Class in a city that actually matters to
growth, but rather high educational attainment (Glaeser
2005
, Rausch and Negrey
2006
, Markusen
2006
). Given that educational attainment is just one aspect of the
creative index and one in many cases that is given least attention by policymakers,
it raises questions about the kinds of strategies and investments being driven by the
Creative City agenda.
