White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 3This means that consumption ofculture and creative activities isconcentrated in the medium to largesizedcities. We must also highlightanother feature: i.e. that the greaterconsumption in the larger urbancontexts is not simply a question ofhigher population density, but agreater inclination of people to spendon this kind of activity (probably alsodue to the higher quality and valueadded of the performances and higherpersonal incomes). The averagespending on shows per inhabitant inprovincial capitals is several timesgreater than the sum spent byinhabitants in smaller towns. Forexample, in the case of theatre, theaverage spending per inhabitant in thesmaller towns is just under 1 euro peryear, whereas in the provincial capitalsthe equivalent figure is almost 7 euros,i.e. seven times greater (elaboration ofSIAE data, Quaderni dello spettacolo,2005).These figures, although only a roughguide, do demonstrate how cities areable to create and maintain marketconditions so that the creativeindustries can develop and prosperboth quantitatively and qualitatively.The cities and the new creativeclassesThe presence of many varied culturaland recreational activities is importantnot only because of their generaleconomic impact on consumption, butalso for their effect on some socialprocesses in the city, as well as theattraction they exercise over somespecific categories of people orcategories of professionals.Access to cultural and recreationalactivities helps make the urbanenvironment particularly attractive forpeople with higher levels of education(Glaeser et al., 2001), and especiallythose people involved in intellectualand creative activities; in short, theabove-mentioned creative class. Andsince these categories are the mostcritical for the development andgrowth of a place, the capacity toattract and keep them becomes astrategic objective for every city orregion.We must stress, however, that thecapacity of places with a highconcentration of amenities to attractcreatives and highly skilled people isnot only linked to recreational andconsumption elements, but also to thesocial and economic value that thesefeatures take on for that category ofpeople. In fact a high-density and widevariety of cultural activities offers theopportunity to come into contact withpeople with similar and/orcomplementary interests, objectivesand backgrounds. These encounterspotentially give rise to new ideas, newcombinations of forms of knowledgeand new opportunities for professionalgrowth (Currid, 2007). viiiThis is also one of the reasons why themovements and geographicaldistribution of the better educatedpopulation and the creative classfollow very specific trends, such as thetendency to greater geographicalWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 77