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1st EUGEO Conference, Amsterdam, 20-22 August 2007 Pathways for creative cities Marco Bontje Zoltan Kovacs Alan Murie Sako Musterd Focus of this paper Which cities / city-regions are best positioned to become successful creative knowledge hubs? • • • • Economic development urban change Creative and knowledge-intensive industries ‘Creative class’ Cases: Amsterdam, Birmingham, Budapest Introducing the ACRE project • EU 6th Framework, Priority 7 ‘Citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society’ • 4 years, started October 2006 • Central themes: creative knowledge economy, city-regional competitiveness • 13 partners in 13 European city-regions • Methods: literature review, secondary data analysis, surveys, interviews, analysis policy discourse • More details on http://www2.fmg.uva.nl/acre The 13 ACRE case studies Amsterdam Barcelona Birmingham Budapest Dublin Helsinki Leipzig Milan Munich Poznan Riga Sofia Toulouse Theories of economic development and urban change • New agglomeration economies: shifts in scale, structure, specialisation, mode of production and division of labour • Global – local • Clustering • Path dependence • ‘Hard’ and ‘soft’ location factors Hard and soft location factors Accessibility / connectivity Labour Tax / legal regime HARD Rent levels ‘Address’ Office space ‘Look and feel’ Residential (Sub) culture SOFT Tolerance Meeting places Creativity, knowledge, and city-regional development • Creative industries: symbolic value more important than practical value • Tendency to cluster in specific metropolitan regions and specific urban areas • Role of path dependence • Knowledge-intensive industries: strongly linked to CI • Creative Class: talent-technology-tolerance? • CI + KI + CC suggest increased importance of soft location factors • Are creative cities tolerant, social, livable cities? Amsterdam • • • • Rich history as trade, art and education centre Diverse regional economy Prime concentration of Dutch CI and KI sectors Clusters in historic inner city (small companies) and accessible locations (larger companies) • Positive: connectivity, market access, qualified staff, high living standard, rich cultural offer • Negative: high living costs, housing shortage, high personnel costs, tolerance under pressure • Policy focus: regionalisation, facilitating CI/KI/CC, working against polarisation Birmingham • • • • • • • • Economic prosperity built on manufacturing Innovative and growing until 1960s Rapid decline 1970s/1980s 1980s/1990s: flagship projects, structural shift to service, finance, business tourism… …but overdependence on low-value manufacturing (automotive) remains CI + KI at forefront of urban regeneration Prominent role of culture in planning agenda But problems to align built environment and skills base with CI and KI demands Budapest • • • • Primate city in Hungary since late 19th century Late modernisation Winner of post-socialist transition… …but contrasting developments within region: suburban building boom, decaying inner city • Diverse economy: increasingly service-oriented, but manufacturing still important • Gateway for innovation and technology, centre of creativity • Policy: CI and KI prioritised at national, regional and local level Conclusions • Creative and knowledge-intensive cities: exclusive club, or possible everywhere with good local / regional governance? • Most cities /regions currently presuppose the latter • Cases: Amsterdam best positioned for creative success? • No guarantees for success or failure! • No single type, but variety of CKI cities • Distinctive legacies contribute to distinctive outcomes