OECD Culture and Local Development.pdf - PACA

3. PROMOTING LOCAL DEVELOPMENT BY CREATING CULTURAL PRODUCTS
More recently, Florida has broadened his analysis somewhat by putting forward
the idea of the “creative class” (Florida, 2004). Finding that people with high human
capital are quite ready to leave the big industrial centres for more dynamic cities,
he deduces a link between the creative population and the creative district.
Creative people will seek out a district that offers cultural amenities, high-tech
services, good living and recreational conditions, and an atmosphere of freedom
and respect for identities. The district, in turn, will benefit from this population
“whose function is to create meaningful new forms … scientists and engineers,
university teachers, poets and writers, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, and
architects” [quote confirmed]. This super-creative core can be expanded to include
the class of clerical staff and other applied-intelligence workers: while they may
create less than the others, they must also use their more generic knowledge to
solve specific problems.
Is it possible to come up with an indicator identifying the threshold where this
osmosis between the creative city and the creative class kicks in? Once the creative
class represents at least 35% of the workforce, the city will be truly creative and will
remain so. Florida notes, incidentally, that the ambitions of some big industrial cities
to remake themselves have stumbled not for lack of investment but for their inability
to attract this type of population. He concludes, then, that there is a second type of
indicator: a city’s ability to recognise the specific needs of this class 96 .
The land-use dimension
Cultural districts often originate in urban neighbourhoods where artisans once
gathered, especially under the guild system. Located in the heart of the city, and thus
immersed in its markets, their existence was closely linked to the availability of
working and living space. In the meantime, urban development patterns have worked
against them. The processes of speculation and gentrification have reduced available
space and shunted their workshops beyond the cities, or to their peripheries. These
changes interrupted their traditional trading networks, in which they frequently dealt
face-to-face with their clients. Artisans were obliged to work through intermediaries,
and this gradually led some of them to become dependent on merchants who
preferred to deal in standardised products that bore less and less of the artisan’s personal
stamp 97 .
Today, cities are trying to reverse this movement and to revive or refurbish their
urban cores or their rundown neighbourhoods, or more generally to improve their urban
image as a whole. The establishment of cultural districts featuring heritage and
creative activities is one approach, as we shall see below (see Chapter 4). The main
obstacle to these efforts is not financial, since there are many willing partners. Instead,
it lies in the fact that these policies for reconciling local and global cultures can lead
to gentrification and to the disappearance of the last traditional cultures.
114 CULTURE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT - ISBN 92-64-00990-6 - © OECD 2005