The Consequences of the Creative Class: The Pursuit of Creativity Strategies in Australia's Cities

The idea of 'creative cities' has gained prominence amongst urban planners and policymakers who often now find links between economic development and the 'soft' attributes of cities. While definitions of the 'creative industries' and the 'creative class' continue to be contested, many key urban policy actors continue to focus on developing strategic programmes and policies to boost 'creativity' and economic growth. In this article we review recent attempts to implement creative city ideas across five Australian state capitals. Following the analysis of interview material derived from contact with 100 key community and policymaker actors, we first develop a typology of approaches to creative city ideas: concerted action, engagement and strategic drift. We then move on to consider how the idea of the creative city provides a simultaneously criticized yet powerful organizing device that informs local strategies in relation to prosperity. Our analysis highlights a series of connected consequences around four key issues: (1) arts projects and gentrification; (2) housing affordability; (3) revanchist strands to public space management; and (4) relative rates of social investment. We find that the rhetoric of universal social potential accompanying creative city ideas continues to overlook those unable to participate in this new economy, as well as those who are more actively excluded. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal Compilation(c) 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

[1]  A. Anttiroiko Creative city concept in local economic development: the case of Finnish cities , 2010 .

[2]  Richard Florida,et al.  Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life , 2008 .

[3]  Christopher R Brennan-Horley,et al.  Goodbye Pram City: Beyond Inner/Outer Zone Binaries in Creative City Research , 2006 .

[4]  S. Musterd,et al.  AMSTERDAM AND THE PRECONDITIONS FOR A CREATIVE KNOWLEDGE CITY , 2006 .

[5]  A. Scott Creative Cities: Conceptual Issues and Policy Questions , 2006 .

[6]  P. Drucker Knowledge-Worker Productivity: The Biggest Challenge , 1999, IEEE Engineering Management Review.

[7]  R. Reich The Work of Nations , 2006 .

[8]  Christopher R Gibson Sydney's creative economy: social and spatial challenges , 2006 .

[9]  Jamie Peck Struggling with the Creative Class , 2005 .

[10]  J. Montgomery Beware ‘the Creative Class’. Creativity and Wealth Creation Revisited , 2005 .

[11]  R. Florida The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent , 2005 .

[12]  Christopher R Gibson,et al.  The 'cultural turn' in Australian regional economic development discourse: neoliberalising creativity? , 2005 .

[13]  S. Wilks‐Heeg Local Economy@20 , 2005 .

[14]  M. E. Peebles A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age , 2005 .

[15]  Daniel H. Pink A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age , 2005 .

[16]  P. Hall Creativity, Culture, Knowledge and the City , 2004 .

[17]  H. Mommaas Cultural Clusters and the Post-industrial City: Towards the Remapping of Urban Cultural Policy , 2004 .

[18]  Terry Flew,et al.  Fashioning an Entrepreneurial Creative Cultural Self , 2004 .

[19]  Neil Bradford,et al.  Creative Cities Structured Policy Dialogue Backgrounder , 2004 .

[20]  R. Florida The Rise of the Creative Class : And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life , 2003 .

[21]  Chrissie Gibson Cultures at work: Why 'culture' matters in research on the 'cultural' industries , 2003 .

[22]  R. Florida Cities and the Creative Class , 2003 .

[23]  Kieran Healy What's New for Culture in the New Economy? , 2002 .

[24]  S. Tepper,et al.  What ’ s New for Culture in the New Economy ? , 2002 .

[25]  Chris C. Miller The creative city: A toolkit for urban innovators , 2001 .

[26]  Zhou Shui-yin,et al.  Managing Knowledge-Worker , 2000 .

[27]  Timothy Koschmann,et al.  The Cultural Turn , 1999 .

[28]  F. Jameson The Cultural Turn , 1998 .

[29]  F. Bianchini,et al.  The Creative City , 1995 .

[30]  堀内 俊洋 Reich, R. B., The Work of Nations Preparing Ourselves for 21-st Century Capitalism : 中谷巌;『The Work of Nations 21世紀資本主義のイメージ』 , 1992 .

[31]  Nelson R. Kellogg,et al.  The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism by Robert B. Reich (review) , 1993, Technology and Culture.

[32]  C. Avgerou The Informational City: Information Technology Economic Restructuring and the Urban Regional Process , 1991 .

[33]  R. Hill The Coming Of Post Industrial Society , 1974 .

[34]  D. Bell The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society , 1973 .

[35]  P. Drucker Landmarks of tomorrow , 1959 .

[36]  Peter F. Drucker,et al.  Concept of the Corporation , 1946 .

[37]  L. Mumford The Culture of Cities , 1939, Nature.