Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
state—be it at the state, regional or city level—has been the key agent in the devel-
opment and implementation of Creative City initiatives. What Florida's concentra-
tion on a particular class has also done is give significant agency at an ever smaller
scale to particular groups of individuals. The core of his argument relies on the idea
that cities need to attract talented people and to do this they must guess or influence
individual locational decision-making preferences. For Florida, the most creative
and successful city will be the one that can cater to as many different lifestyles and
choices and cluster as many talented individuals together as possible. However the
biased financing of this trend, given other needs, and the dubious link between cre-
ative workers and growth, has produced a new set of urban problems that seem to
have been ignored by policy-makers.
106
Conclusions: The Great Creative City Debate
This discussion has shown that there is little new about the concept of the city as a
creative entity. Florida has applied the idea in a specific contemporary form in the
United States and Canada and claimed primacy for what he calls the Creative Class
in generating new employment. The influence of this particular view has been far-
reaching, with European and Australian policymakers also drawing on the ideas to
produce Creative City policies. By their very nature, the world's great cities have
always been driven by innovation and creativity, attracting innovative migrants that
have aided further growth. However, in recent decades, ideas about urban creativity
have gained new momentum in academic and policy circles as they have become
closely linked with an expanding cultural sector, and the new economy and urban
regeneration agendas. Scott (
2006
, p. 15) has argued that a focus on developing cre-
ative environments within cities through transformation of the social and physical
fabric provides opportunities for “
bringing the dimensions of economy, culture, and
place back into some sort of practical and humanly reasonable harmony”
. Perhaps
one of the major benefits of the debate has been a renewed focus on the arts and
cultural sectors from the perspective of both production and consumption in cities.
For many working in the cultural economy, the Creative City debate has provided a
platform from which they can argue for increased funding and support from govern-
ment agencies.
Despite some advantages the Creative City literature has many flaws, especial-
ly in its methodology, and limited contexts, while there is research evidence that
shows that the Creative Cities as identified by Florida have not necessarily been
in the forefront of the turn of the century growth. Apart from this essentially urban
system critique, there are intra-urban problems. One of the biggest drawbacks of
the Creative City idea as embraced by policymakers is that it has failed to address,
and in some cases reinforces, pre-existing social divisions. From the basic prem-
ise that a particular class are responsible for 'creativity', through to the unequal
consequences of creative policy implementation, as discussed earlier, the Creative
City agenda has become equated with a neoliberal agenda that favours urban elites
