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Pathways for creative cities

1 st EUGEO Conference, Amsterdam, 20-22 August 2007. Pathways for creative cities. Marco Bontje Zoltan Kovacs Alan Murie Sako Musterd. Focus of this paper. Which cities / city-regions are best positioned to become successful creative knowledge hubs?. Economic development  urban change

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Pathways for creative cities

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  1. 1st EUGEO Conference, Amsterdam, 20-22 August 2007 Pathways for creative cities Marco Bontje Zoltan Kovacs Alan Murie Sako Musterd

  2. Focus of this paper Which cities / city-regions are best positioned to become successful creative knowledge hubs? • Economic development  urban change • Creative and knowledge-intensive industries • ‘Creative class’ • Cases: Amsterdam, Birmingham, Budapest

  3. Introducing the ACRE project • EU 6th Framework, Priority 7 ‘Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society’ • 4 years, started October 2006 • Central themes: creative knowledge economy, city-regional competitiveness • 13 partners in 13 European city-regions • Methods: literature review, secondary data analysis, surveys, interviews, analysis policy discourse • More details on http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/acre

  4. The 13 ACRE case studies Milan Amsterdam Munich Barcelona Birmingham Poznan Budapest Riga Sofia Dublin Helsinki Toulouse Leipzig

  5. Theories of economic development and urban change • New agglomeration economies: shifts in scale, structure, specialisation, mode of production and division of labour • Global – local • Clustering • Path dependence • ‘Hard’ and ‘soft’ location factors

  6. Hard and soft location factors Accessibility / connectivity Tax / legal regime HARD Labour ‘Address’ Rent levels Office space ‘Look and feel’ SOFT Residential Tolerance (Sub) culture Meeting places

  7. Creativity, knowledge, and city-regional development • Creative industries: symbolic value more important than practical value • Tendency to cluster in specific metropolitan regions and specific urban areas • Role of path dependence • Knowledge-intensive industries: strongly linked to CI • Creative Class: talent-technology-tolerance? • CI + KI + CC  suggest increased importance of soft location factors • Are creative cities tolerant, social, livable cities?

  8. Amsterdam • Rich history as trade, art and education centre • Diverse regional economy • Prime concentration of Dutch CI and KI sectors • Clusters in historic inner city (small companies) and accessible locations (larger companies) • Positive: connectivity, market access, qualified staff, high living standard, rich cultural offer • Negative: high living costs, housing shortage, high personnel costs, tolerance under pressure • Policy focus: regionalisation, facilitating CI/KI/CC, working against polarisation

  9. Birmingham • Economic prosperity built on manufacturing • Innovative and growing until 1960s • Rapid decline 1970s/1980s • 1980s/1990s: flagship projects, structural shift to service, finance, business tourism… • …but overdependence on low-value manufacturing (automotive) remains • CI + KI at forefront of urban regeneration • Prominent role of culture in planning agenda • But problems to align built environment and skills base with CI and KI demands

  10. Budapest • Primate city in Hungary since late 19th century • Late modernisation • Winner of post-socialist transition… • …but contrasting developments within region: suburban building boom, decaying inner city • Diverse economy: increasingly service-oriented, but manufacturing still important • Gateway for innovation and technology, centre of creativity • Policy: CI and KI prioritised at national, regional and local level

  11. Conclusions • Creative and knowledge-intensive cities: exclusive club, or possible everywhere with good local / regional governance? • Most cities /regions currently presuppose the latter • Cases: Amsterdam best positioned for creative success? • No guarantees for success or failure! • No single type, but variety of CKI cities • Distinctive legacies contribute to distinctive outcomes

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