The expression “the creative city” sounds unusual and a bit strange for a Russian ear. The concept “creative” is usually associated with a subject (a creative person, creative staff) or with a process (creative search, creative solution). And a city is usually associated with an inanimate object: buildings, streets, squares, and historical places of interest. Even when we speak about people in the city, we consider the city authority, on the one hand, and the citizens as the passive object of governing, on the other hand. Monotony and gray colors of our cities are directly connected with such an “objective” city vision.
The idea of this article was prompted by the creative city concept of the famous British expert Charles Landry, expressed in his book “The Creative City”. The Russian translation of this book, prepared with the assistance of Cultural Policy Institute was published in the publishing house “Classika XXI” and was distributed very quickly. Now the editor prepares the additional printing of this book. This fact confirms in practice great interest in Russia to the city revival technologies through culture and creativity. This topic was also discussed within the seminar “The creative city. Social and cultural projecting and social advertising in the northern cities”, which took place in 2006 as a part of the Forum of the Cities of the 60th Parallel.
Nowadays the topic of creative economy, creative industries and creative cities occupies minds of the great number of active specialists in different fields of activity. Speaking about a creative city it is important to answer the following questions: what is a creative city? Why is the concept of a creative city so important for us? How does European concept suit the Russian reality? How does the creativity provide the cities and their citizens’ development? Why is the creative, humanitarian part in the cities and countries development brought to the forefront?
Cities as competitors
By the end of XX century 47 % of the Earth inhabitants had lived in the cities. And this figure has increased today. And the modern city is not the same as it was some time ago.
It is said a lot about city competition both on a global and a local scale. The most developed and the richest cities – New York, Tokyo, Singapore, London and others compete for financial, information and human flows which are equal to the concepts “development” and “prosperity” in the modern world. These giants are overtaken by the new or renewed cities, such as Shanghai. But even at lower level the competition is getting harder. We can speak here that Moscow, Budapest and Kiev compete with each other that is the competition goes out of the state borders, like the competition for the title of the capital of the next Olympiad. Such cities as Surgut and Khanty-Mansiysk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and smaller cities, drawing the human resources from the village – all of them compete with each other. But the criteria and tools in this competition are getting less material, while other kinds of qualities of the urban environment are getting more important.
The cities today are the junctions of the world flows of loads and capital as well as of people, information, new technologies and creative ideas.
The globalization process diminishes the borders between countries and cultures and creates the feeling of identity loss in the system of state institutions and increases the need in local identity fixation at local and regional levels.
The cities have become the bridges between different identities, cross-roads of cultures, some kind of “interfaces”, where national traditions co-exist without dissolving. And, like in all times, the most original art has appeared in the places where different cultures fertilized each other (just like the unique art of Crete), so today the most successful cities are multicultural cities, which created comfortable niches for cultural traditions and modern search meeting.
The groups united by the common interests not by geographical, national, family, social or another connections has become of great importance. Real and virtual grounds for communication of these groups are also the necessary element of competitive urban environment.
And, at last, in this new system culture and creativity are getting the tools of cities renewal.
Why creativity[1]?
When we speak about creativity, we imagine a painter drawing a canvas or a poet writing poems. But even the Great Soviet Encyclopedia gives us the broader concept, exceeding the limited circle of art activity: “Creativity is an activity producing some object of a new quality that has never existed before.”
Modern social philosophers and economists went even further. The concept of creative economics, creativity recognition as a leading factor of development in the post industrial society is attracting more and more followers.
Creativity, imagination, flexibility and quickness of mind are considered to be more important factors than the volume of information, perceived by a person or being a member of some respectable social group. Creativity provides a person with a possibility of making new, unusual decisions, a possibility to adapt to the changes or even forecast the following changes. It is the reason why business and science, art and city development choose creativity as a key tool for the performing tasks.
What advantages does modern creativity provide? It is flexibility, dynamics and innovation. Flexibility gives the possibility to response adequately to the market changes, the opportunity to forecast changing and increasing expectations of the consumers. The dynamics of the creative decisions allows us to be ready for the tomorrow changes even today and to transform on the move. Innovation as a creation of new senses and new values is the main factor of competitive ability. The appeal of design or cultural associations aroused by some thing in the customer’s mind is the main conditions of the good demand.
The creative approach has been implemented now in all spheres of the world economics. The ability to think flexibly in a non-standard way and to find non-trivial decisions – are almost common requirements to the managers of any company. The great number of new professions and new spheres of activity – from multimedia to interior design – open large markets for applying of the creative people energy. In traditional fields, such as car production or pharmaceutical production the share of the creative jobs, connected with production design increases year by year.
One of the famous British experts, Phil Wood, reasonably mentioned: “There were times, when life was easier – managers managed, planners planned and workers worked. As for creativity it was the sphere of painters and, perhaps, some scientists, but, without any doubt, it had nothing to do with the “serious business” of managing big organizations. Nowadays just a few corporation leaders allow themselves not to have a considered strategy of the creative potential realization – both its own and its colleagues’. Today creativity is considered to be corporate capital, even the weapon in the struggle for the competitive advantages on the worldwide scale”[2].
The creative class
At last, the idea of Marx, concerning leading society classes found its new expression. Sociologists and social philosophers started talking about the new social class – the class of creative people, the people of creative professions in the modern, broad meaning of this word.
“If you are a scientist or an engineer, an architect or a designer, a writer, a painter or a musician; if the creative activity is the crucial factor of your work – in the sphere of business, education, health-caring, law or any other – you also belong to this class”, - writes Richard Florida[3].
The people belonging to this class are the basic “engine” of the development and competitive capacities of the cities. Neither geographical position, nor heavy and light industry, even not the government administrative bodies in the city make it successful and prosperous leader in the world or regional economics. The attraction of the city environment for creative class is the basis for the city development and prosperity.
What is “a creative city”?
A creative city is the combination of creative abilities of individuals and communities for economically and socially successful urban environment formation on the basis of cultural resources.
Active self-realization of every citizen in this process is both the aim and the means of culture development, favorable social climate creating and economics consolidation.
So creativity becomes the fuel for the engine called “urban development’. Into the competence of creativity, culture and art the social problems far from these spheres are included: life safety, ecology, social inequality, migration, national minorities’ adaptation and many others.
What makes the city creative?
At the first glance the answer to this question is very simple. Creative people, creative projects and creative organizations, working for the city prosperity make the city creative. But for efficient operation of all these parts network interaction but not hierarchic one among all the subjects of the city development is needed.
City infrastructure, according to Landry is divided into “hard” one (organizations, public space) and “soft” one (system of the cooperating structures and social network, connections and interactions among people, which stimulates the flow of ideas between the individuals and organizations).
We used to perceive the city space as “hard” infrastructure – the system of squares, streets and public buildings, sub-system of cultural institutions, residential districts and so on. Today a library and a museum in the city are not so important as the creative projects, which are realized through them. Not construction of the high-rise buildings in the city is important, but organization of the people interaction space. Not the central square itself is important, but the actions, taking place there. Stimulating ideas exchange among people and organizations very often leads clubs and cafes infrastructure into the foreground, leaving in the background the construction of a new stadium or an academic theatre building.
Such question formulation makes us rethink the problem of the material resources, nagging for all the cities.
We undervalue human resources or value them in a wrong way very often. And very seldom we connect the creative productive city atmosphere and toleration. Any “fresh blood” including immigrants shows the way out in the cases, where only the source of the social tension was seen.
The toleration, which is discussed so much is not a conditional toleration of the people belonging to other categories (“let them live”), but creating a special atmosphere of interest to another, non-standard lifestyles, traditions, views and decisions.
Cultural institutions – both state and municipal, as well as independent ones play the special role in the “city creativity foundation” establishment. They perform the functions of the professional technologists of “local identity”, introducing creative ideas and projects into the urban environment, organizing public space – public communicative grounds. Unfortunately, many Russian cultural organizations have seen their function just in broadcasting high culture samples strictly within the budget financing and founder’s task, and it isolates them completely from the processes, taking place in the city.
When we speak about the city competition and the city development, we do not have to bear in mind an isolated city-fortress, which is visited by rare messengers only with important news. The dynamics of network relations both within the city and outside at the cross-regional and international levels – is also an important development factor.
The communication space and channels create the city environment. The city environment becomes a culture medium for new creative projects. Such projects can be impressive, large-scale events – exhibitions of modern art or a book fair, but small, local everyday projects, growing “from the ground” and solving the problems of the citizens of a separate district, street, house will be of the same importance.
Very often a starting point for realization of the chain of such projects is a large, ambitious demonstration project, just like the Forum of the Cities of the 60th Parallel, revitalizing the city environment of Surgut or the festival “The Cultural Capital” in the Privolzhsky Federal Okrug. But, first of all, the initiators, headquarters and basis for these projects have to be creative organizations.
Creative organizations
A creative organization is not only a union of artists or an art museum. The status of an artistic organization itself does not make the organization creative.
The organization, operating apart from the society with the tough, hierarchic structure, where everything is done according to instructions and under tough authorities control is automatically doomed to be failure and to experience lack of the positive influence on the city life. Such organization is aimed exceptionally at quantity rates and offers the products of one kind. The main professional criteria are obedience. The organization of such kind is to a great degree protected from the criticizing from above, but how fruitful will be its activity? Unfortunately, many cultural organizations still stick to this model, but whatever creative tasks are written in its charter, its results will not be creative.
Creative city forms the organizations of completely another type. The main principle of the activity of such organizations is partnership and rights delegating. Creative organization is interested, first of all, in the quality and variety of the product offered. In the focus of its professional attention are influence and stimulating, co-authorship and cooperation, which are the guarantee of success in the modern world. Now it is the route of a small number of organizations, because it is connected with many risks.
The influence of such organizations on the city life and territories in the modern world will be early or late noticed and realized by everybody.
Creative industries
Creativity has not always influenced the economy. Just remember a famous example of the Rubic’s Cube when the production of a simple and ingenious toy gave Hungary more profit in socialistic times than all its national planned economy.
As for the creative industries, this concept is fairly new and not for Russia only. But it is this factor, uniting creative businesses, that was considered to be dynamical and perspective. In the UK the sector of creative industries increases by 9 % every year. The concept of creative industries includes design, advertising, architecture, fashion, cinema, video, music and recording, performance art, TV, radio, Internet, literature, publishing, multimedia and computer games, and painting. The creative industries are products making, economic value of which is based on the intellectual, creative compound.
The creative industries in Russia are a leading edge of innovations in a way. Not only city atmosphere and its life standards but also the economical future of regions will be dependent on how the cultural sphere of big and developed cities will accept this ideology. The culture medium for intellectual and creative business is a developed postindustrial economy, in which values of initiative and undertaking freedom, typical for capitalism, get filled with the new content.
Creative city in Russia
And at last – what is a creative city in Russia?
The concept of creative cities development can and must become a real alternative to economy oriented to the most non-creative out of all possible strategies – selling of raw natural materials.
Unfortunately, western patterns are always perceived in Russia in a dual way. They certainly cause broad interest, wish to study and imitate and they often become the means of criticism on principle: “But they have! But we have here …” And so often our reactions are determined by the idea of national originality: no, “they” are not the authorities for us, we are going to follow our own way. And while creative intellectuals continue their constant historical dispute, the key decisions are made by another people which do not always understand the meaning of humanistic, creative technologies and cultural resources for urban development.
“The old industrial regions definitely possess low creative potential, otherwise they would be able to avoid decrease in time”, - said Charles Landry. Unfortunately many old industrial centers in Russia continue to be obvious illustration of this thesis.
The situation demands the creative solution from us which cannot be realized at once even if we do want. The solution can be the product of serious work and new creative projects can become the most important steps here. It is necessary to combine efforts of people of different professions working in different spheres of human activity to move the things from the dead point. I think that it is very important that the idea of creative city providing the possibility for cultural workers to contribute into cultural legacy preservation and economical and social cities development becomes a uniting platform. It allows us to rethink our tasks and to look into our future in a different way.
[1] Abstract concept of creative capacity, or “creativity”, was firstly used in 1927 by the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead for marking the sphere of free action.
[2] Phil Wood . Turnover of the city creation // Creative industries in Russia. M.: Cultural Policy Institute, 2005.
[3] Florida R. The creative class: people, changing the world. M.: Classika XXI, 2005.
