Summary View-Point on Creative Cities Summit

Creative Cities Summit 2.0 Recap by Arnold Weinfeld
Director of Public Policy & Federal Affairs for the League

Monday

October 13, 2008

This week, the second-ever Creative Cities Summit will be taking place in Detroit at the Renaissance Center. The League has been working with event founder Peter Kageyama and a host of other organizations over the last several months on putting together an event that will feature speakers from around the world with knowledge and experience in creating vibrant communities. I'm looking forward to hearing from people such as Richard Florida, Charles Landry, John Howkins, Doug Farr, Bill Strickand and a host of others. Session content covers a wide array of topics from cities and universities; attracting and retaining talent (this one features League CEO Dan Gilmartin); design; marketing and media; transportation; music and creativity; and sustainability, just to mention a few. It all starts today and runs through Wednesday. I'll be reporting highlights throughout the week. For a full agenda check out www.creativecitiessummit.com.

Tuesday

October 14, 2008

As the Creative Cities Summit opened on Monday in Detroit, Karen Gagnon, Cool Cities director and CCS2 (Creative Cities Summit 2) co-producer, asked people to take away one big idea. Yet the first day speakers revealed several concepts that when woven together bring to mind the big idea that cities hold the key to creating the environment necessary for creativity.

As Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, author of The Municipal Mind noted, creativity is impossible without the civil encounter, for the city is the place where one discovers his/her destiny through others. Di Cicco also spoke about how risk taking is essential to creative economies as much as good urban citizenship is a key to knowledge economy. He was followed by John Howkins, one of the first to publish ideas on creativity and innovation in the 2001 work, The Creative Economy, and a consultant who has worked in over 30 countries—most recently in China. He began by noting how China will achieve in 30 years, the kind of urbanization it took Europe nearly 2,000 years. Howkins said the creative economy sees more failures than the service or manufacturing economies and that global competition in the 21st century is minds vs minds and copyright vs copyright, or minds working with other minds. He set forth his principles of 'creative ecology' whereby everyone is considered to be creative; creativity needs freedom and freedom needs markets. Howkins said creativity is not simply art or innovation but imagination, dreams, new concepts, design, culture, style, and meaning.

Freedom is dialogue, collaboration, education, training, learning, and acceptance by family/friends/society. The market is the marketplace of ideas as evidenced through information content and the internet. The creative ecology is one where diverse individuals express themselves in a systematic and adaptive way using ideas to produce new ideas. According to Howkins, the six indicators of the creative ecology are systems, diversity, change, learning, adaptation, and sustainability. The next billion of those looking for work will go to creative cities to join the creative ecology.

Bill Strickland concluded with his inspirational story of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Strickland's story and his vision are built around the premise that provided the right environment, people will go into the world as assets, not liabilities. To say the least, the first day of the summit was a day for listening and learning. Tuesday we'll hear more thoughts on the creative economy, creative city, and creative design from thinkers such as Richard Florida and Charles Landry, sustainable urbanist Doug Farr, as well as Ben Hecht of Living Cities and Tom Wujec of Autodesk, with breakout session topics covering LEED neighborhood development, transportation, and a discussion on the Midwest as a mega-region. Something tells me that it will be another day of big ideas. Stay tuned to more from the 'D' on these and other goings on at the CCS2!

Wednesday

October 15, 2008

You'll recall that I mentioned yesterday that if Monday's sessions were any indication then those speaking Tuesday would also have some big ideas for us to consider. Well I and those in attendance were not disappointed! The day began with Tom Wujec of Autodesk. Autodesk is the Oscar-winning industry leader in 3D computer animation technology. Tom discussed how teams foster their creativity, that innovation is the capacity to encourage imagination. He was followed by Ben Hecht, President and CEO of Living Cities. Living Cities is a national community redevelopment initiative that looks to improve the built environment in under-developed neighborhoods. Ben sees cities as the solution for solving America's problems—leading us into the green economy and building a new urban ecosystem through strong neighborhoods. He noted that venture capitalists are funding 'clean technology' initiatives right behind information technology and bio tech.

We then heard from Doug Farr, a Detroit native and an architect, planner, and author of the book Sustainable Urbanism. Doug spoke about the foundations of sustainable urbanism—smart growth, green buildings, and new urbanism. He said that we need to change our culture and our systems when it comes to thinking about efficiency and sustainability, including fixing codes and reversing regulations. He noted that a part of the 2030 Communities Campaign is to reduce vehicle miles traveled; it is wrong to think we can all buy fuel efficient vehicles and drive more or build larger buildings simply because they’re 'green'.

Richard Florida was the lunch keynote speaker, and although he made the circuit a few times a number of years ago after penning the book The Rise of the Creative Class, it was the first time this writer had seen him speak. He has a new book out now titled Who's Your City? and his speech ran the gamut of topics from the current financial crisis to the role cities must play in providing the means for creativity. Florida opined that we are in the midst of a fundamental economic transformation and that the current worldwide financial crisis is not analogous to 1929, but rather to the late 1800s—the last time the world saw great economic system change. The change taking place now according to Florida is the move to a creative economy where the only real capital left is human capital or creativity. The old models of recovery are bankrupt and the only way out is through our communities. He noted that at the turn of the 20th century only five percent of the US was in creative economy; even in 1980 it was only 15-20 percent...now it is 33 percent. Creativity doesn't respect social boundaries...it has nothing to do with race, disabilities; etc. Rather than a “melting pot” he said we are now a “mosaic society” where an individual can keep their culture, their identity, and enjoy the culture and identity of others. Arts, culture, and entertainment are as important today as business, finance, and technology. In order to provide the means for fostering creativity, cities must provide 1) physical and economic security; 2) economic and civic opportunity; 3) leadership to activate the creativity; 4) open mindedness and being welcoming to all; and 5) quality of place including integration with the natural environment. And this just got us through lunch! I'll continue with more tomorrow including thoughts from Charles Landry and a historic roundtable discussion.

Thursday

October 16, 2008

Day 2- Part 2

When I left off yesterday, Richard Florida had just given his manifesto of the way things are now and the way they should be. And, whether you’re a Richard Florida fan or not he definitely gives one something to think about.

Which takes us to after lunch on Tuesday and Charles Landry. Landry is known for his work on creativity and its uses and how city futures are shaped by paying attention to the culture of a place. He too has written books, his most recent, The Art of City Making focuses on how cities can be more "creative for the world." His comments reflected that belief as he noted that the art of city making in the 21st century is the art of living together. He said that there are many ways to look at a city but that first and foremost is its history and creativity. Having a strong arts and cultural heritage is synonymous with the creative economy. He noted that one of the challenges facing us is what to do with smaller 2nd-6th level cities. What is the emerging advantage when every city is chasing talent and being creative—it is values driven development connecting to a bigger picture. Cities need to learn to keep the best and reinvent the rest through capital assessments.

Landry also dug down into city organization providing a means by which cities must be open through a "creative bureaucracy" or one which is strategically principled but tactically flexible. One that is open to collaboration and partnership with its citizens and greater community.

Following Landry was a roundtable discussion which, for the first time, brought together the three people—Landry, John Howkins and Richard Florida—who for the past decade have spent their time writing and speaking about the creative economy, creative class, and creative city. The discussion was moderated by CEOs for Cities director Carol Coletta and a lively discussion ensued weaving together the thoughts of these thinkers. Some of the comments included Florida saying that the most basic right of any person is to be able to fully explore your talent through self expression and that cities must stop doing dumb things. They need to conserve resources, empower community groups. Reflecting on the current worldwide situation he noted that "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” John Howkins noted that creativity needs freedom and that we need to be investing in people. Landry noted that we have to shift the rule system away from the plantation mentality of the industrial system.

As full as the morning and afternoon session were, there was a after-dinner session with representatives from Google, MSU, U-M and WSU as well as private business and Lansing Mayor and MML Board member Virg Bernero to discuss cities, universities, and talent. Nearly everyone agreed that all need to work better together at retaining talent in Michigan.

Tuesday CCS2 sessions were about as full as they get with concepts and ideas on how we need to move forward to secure a better future. And after hearing speakers for the first two days, one thing is indeed clear... the world economic platform has changed to one in which brains are the new capital, not brawn. Those cities, states, regions, and countries that understand this and put in place systems that will encourage creative activity and growth in their communities will grow themselves.

Friday

October 17, 2008

After two days of speakers and presenters giving us more than one "big idea," the last day of the CCS2 was drill down day as many session speakers were from organizations working on the ground implementing those very ideas that help to create vibrant cities. In the opening plenary session, Doug Rothwell (president of Detroit Renaissance) and Kelly Lee (executive vice president of Innovation Philadelphia) spoke to their respective efforts at working to create places that will attract young, talented people. That was followed by breakout sessions involving such topics as music and economic development, planning for the creative city, and race and the creative city. This last topic explored the challenges, triumphs, and lessons learned from urban, creative professionals as they worked through racial barriers to spur social and economic innovation. The luncheon speaker was Diana Lind, editor of the magazine Next American City which seeks to link young, urban organizations around the country in an effort to engage that constituency in a quest for more livable cities. The afternoon sessions included discussions on storytelling or how to relate the authenticity of a place; the future of creative expression for cities; creative industry incubators; and a session on the city's role in attracting and retaining talent, featuring League CEO Dan Gilmartin.

The final keynote speaker of the conference was Majora Carter. A life-long resident of the South Bronx, Majora spoke of her belief that one should not have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one, and acted upon that belief by founding the non-profit environmental justice solutions corporation, Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx). Her first project was obtaining a federal planning grant for the South Bronx Greenway Project which led to the first new South Bronx water front park in over 60 years. She has continued to work on projects to improve her neighborhood, one of the poorest in New York City. Since starting the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training Program in 2003, an urban green-collar job training and placement system, she has since partnered with Van Jones on a national green-collar job agenda. Majora is a inspiration to anyone working to make their corner of the world a better place.

For me, this three-day conference re-affirmed my belief that communities hold the key economic prosperity. It helped to coalesce those ideas and strategies that will help me in my work with communities in Michigan. One thing is clear, public and private sector leaders and citizens must understand that a new economic platform is upon us—one that is based around knowledge and creativity, where human capital is the most important element. Those that do and who work together to put in place systems that will encourage creative activity and growth; these are the places that will grow themselves.

I'm glad to be part of an organization that is working with communities in Michigan to help them move forward. Join us.