Charles Landry speaks in Halifax about great cities

Long before Richard Florida discovered the “creative class”
and their predilection for culturally dynamic places, Charles Landry
started talking about the “creative city,” referring to the
regenerative force of arts and culture in post-industrial cities like
Glasgow, Scotland, starting in the late 1980s.

The UK writer/thinker will speak to a business luncheon crowd on
Tuesday, hosted by Greater Halifax Partnership, a sort of souped-up
Chamber of Commerce, describing itself as a public-private partnership
“leading economic growth for Greater Halifax.”

Of all the urban thinkers making the rounds today, Landry has
perhaps the broadest and deepest concept of the role of creativity in
urban life, including all aspects of city-making and the entire
organizational culture of cities.

“For me, the notion of the creative city is really the willingness
to stand back, reflect and look at things in an open-minded way in
order to see what you need to reinvent,” says Landry, from his home in
Gloucestershire. “Many people want to just say, ‘OK, what are the five
tricks we need in order to be a creative city?’ We need a museum, an
aquarium and all of that, and then we’re a creative city. Well, it’s
simply not a formula in that way.”

Landry talks about the difference between hardware and software
approaches to city-making. The hardware might be the roads and
buildings, but equally important is the software—the feelings and
responses and social interactions that happen in those same roads and
buildings. “Basically cities are emotional experiences,” says Landry.
“You decide to be there, operate from there, live there and all of
that, depending on how it ultimately satisfies you emotionally.”

The planning profession, Landry says, is undergoing a battle over
this idea. Planners are “under great pressure. They’ve got to perform
in a completely different way; they’ve got to know new things,
different things. That means different people. It’s people who can
think holistically, versus people who think in linear ways.

“How many people in your planning department know, or are willing to
dare to be open about the fact that you can psychologically feel the
city as it moves along?”

Landry’s visit to Halifax is coming on the heels of a recent report
by the Nova Scotia Cutural Action Network, called Building the
Creative Economy. While the NSCAN report focuses specifically on
the arts and cultural sector of the economy, it shares some key
philosophical points with Landry’s work, not least of which is the
respect for and awareness of the nature of creativity.

During research for the report, co-author Leah Hamilton attended a
Conference Board of Canada event on the creative economy and heard
Australian economist David Thorston speak on the economics of arts and
culture. Thorston presented a “concentric circles” model of the
creative economy, which puts the work of artists and creators in the
centre, with expanding rings representing activities building on this
work, such as design, publishing, filmmaking, etc. Hamilton describes
hearing Thorston as a Eureka moment. “Here was an economist explaining
how the risky, non-profit-motive work of an artist is central to
everything and cannot be compromised,” says Hamilton. The concept
became key to NSCAN’s report, which paints a picture of a core creative
group that is an engine for ideas, driving other aspects of the
economy.

“What is the creative impulse? How does that work?” asks Hamilton.
“Who knows, but whatever it is, it’s precious and it exists central to
the rest. The main thing is to understand what that core does. It does
the risky work. You’re investing in it not for it’s economic potential,
but because it’s an innovative, creative idea.”

*Building the Creative Economy* is NSCAN’s argument for
greater investment in arts and culture, and also for greater
collaboration and understanding between artists and the rest of the
economy. “Really, our recommendation is to say we have to start
thinking about what works here,” says Hamilton. “We didn’t prescribe
that for the community. We really think it has to come from a group of
people that are brought together to do that. Part of NSCAN’s ongoing
work is to start to build those collaborations.”

Building Our Future: The Art of City Making w/Charles
Landry, Tuesday, April 21 at the Westin Nova Scotia, 11:30am, $75,
greaterhalifax.com.

This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2009.