Cultural Development Analysis - Penrith City Council - NSW ...

Cultural Development Analysis – Penrith CBD and St Marys Town Centre
The work of Richard Florida (2002) is influencing the thinking of many
decision makers in relation to the development of our cities. Florida claims
that the capacity of a city to participate in the development of the new
knowledge economies depends on their ability to attract capital and that this
depends on their ability to attract and retain workers with the necessary skills.
He argues that these new, so called, ‘creative classes’ are vital to a city’s
capacity to innovate and thus develop economically. It is important to note in
this context, that Florida is not using the term creative in a narrow, arts related
sense, although his term does not exclude artists per se. By the term he
means those whose labor adds value through creative processes and,
according to his definition, this includes a broad range of skills, including
management and engineering, for example. Florida argues that cities will
need to demonstrate those qualities which these ‘creative classes’ find
attractive in order to attract and retain them as residents and workers and in
order to attract the capital needed to develop the new knowledge economy
industries. These qualities include diverse communities which welcome
unconventional people – same sex households, immigrants, artists and freethinking
“bohemians”.
The authors of a report commissioned by the Melbourne West Area
Consultative Committee (MWACC) and prepared by the National Institute of
Economic and Industry Research last year have developed and applied a
‘creativity index’ to the western region. In developing this index a wide range
of factors have been taken into account including: qualifications, country of
origin and family structure; bohemian occupations; number of patents; and
high tech output. They conclude that for those areas with relatively high
creativity scores a major contributing factor is the rich multicultural history of
these areas.
In England the City of Manchester is:
� Assisting business development for its media, creative and sports
industries;
� Promoting Manchester as a location for creative industries to
generate new business opportunities and attract investors;
� Encouraging access to employment in the creative industries
through training.
Closer to home, Brisbane City Council has:
� Identified a number of industry-cluster precincts where Council is
partnering other agencies in the development of creative industry
hubs and incubators;
� Partnered the Retail Association of Queensland to develop the
‘Subtropical Fashion Awards’
� Developed a world-wide subtropical fashion network of forums, trade
shows etc;
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