Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and essentially writes-off whole sectors of the urban population and environment.
Caught up in the rhetoric of hyper-competitiveness, Creative City policies increas-
ingly highlight the agency of the individual and a specific group, rather than the idea
of the city as community and a place for social justice.
The prescriptive nature of some of the literature that has been generated also
brings the entire concept into question. If creativity is seen as a spontaneous pro-
cess, how can urban policymakers use it in what has been seen by some as 'a recipe
for success'? Moreover, if it is this simple, and every city does it, then how creative
are they all really? Perhaps it is worth bearing in mind the conclusions of one promi-
nent geographer who questioned the path to economic restructuring and growth
suggested by Richard Florida and his supporters as some sort of general panacea
for all cities,
A few fortunate centers perhaps may achieve something that approaches a creative, high-
quality environment across the board, but in most metropolitan areas, developments of this
type will most likely continue to exist only as enclaves in an urban landscape where poverty
and social deprivation still widely prevail. (Scott
2006
, p. 12)
This means that not all cities can expect creative growth and that comprehensive
evaluation is needed to critically assess the broader impacts of creative initia-
tives, especially the negative ones. Otherwise, cities may add to disadvantage and
undermine their own path to creativity and to economic regeneration. It must be
concluded, therefore, that although this urban economic theme has some useful
qualities, it is not really new, has been overstated--with Florida's version especially
being criticized--for in some cases it has created negative consequences that were
rarely anticipated by cities that rushed to apply the idea.
Acknowledgements
Sincere thanks to Veronica Crossa and Philip Lawton for their constructive
comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.
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