A Guide for Sustainable Urban Development of the 21st Century

Shanghai Manual – A Guide for Sustainable Urban Development in the 21st CenturyGrowth Strategy advocating the integration of arts and culture into all aspects of socio-economicdevelopment in South Africa. Several sectors were given particular attention, notably crafts, film,music and publishing industries. Termed Creative South Africa, the initiative aimed at raisingawareness within government on the potential of cultural industries for increasing economicgrowth and social equity. The success of the initiative was the adoption of the cultural industriesas a priority economic sector in the formulation of policies at the national level.In Johannesburg, the municipal government promoted the potential of creative industriesthrough its Economic Development Unit. The term “creative industries” was incorporated intoplanning documents produced by the city. Most importantly, creative industries were given aspecial place in attaining the goals of Joburg 2030, the city’s economic development plan for thenext 20 years. The creative sector in Johannesburg was characterized by small and microenterprisesand the products were mainly targeted to local markets. The Economic DevelopmentUnit established a development strategy specifically for creative industries in 2005. The strategytranslated into the following concrete actions aiming at providing financial and technical supportto creative producers:• The strategy created the Johannesburg Art Bank. Its mission is to complementJohannesburg artists’ income through the creation of a market for their work.• The city put in place the Creative Industries Seed Fund aiming at developing thebusiness skills of creative producers.• The Economic Development Unit provided office space and infrastructure to filmproducers.The strategy was accompanied by three joint initiatives:• The Art City Project, which focused on projecting Johannesburg’s inner core as “thehub and cultural centre of Africa’s world class city” and on promoting tourism in thecity.• The Newtown Cultural Precinct, a joint initiative between the Municipal Governmentand the Provincial Government, was launched. The project’s objective is to develop acluster of creative industries in order to promote tourism and showcaseJohannesburg as the “creative capital of South Africa”.• A hub for fashion design was created for goods of African design that are not massproduced. This project is supported by the Johannesburg Development Agency.Lessons Learned:23