Comedia dir­ector and Cre­at­ive Cit­ies con­trib­utor Charles Landry has been at the fore­front of the con­ver­sa­tion about cre­at­ive cit­ies for the past three dec­ades. In this series of short videos, Landry unpacks some of the key terms and ideas around cre­at­ive city building.

Who makes a city?

In this video, Landry dis­cusses the dif­fer­ence between the “urban engin­eer­ing” approach to city-making and the “cre­at­ive city” approach. The former is focused on engin­eer­ing prob­lems and archi­tec­ture, the built envir­on­ment or “hard­ware” of a city, while the lat­ter is focused on “soft”, human uses of a city. The cre­at­ive city approach con­siders the city as a sens­ory exper­i­ence, and seeks to under­stand how human beings relate to the phys­ical and how people respond to their sur­round­ings — how we relate to our cit­ies and exper­i­ence places through our senses and emo­tions, the primary drivers of human exist­ence — and to use this know­ledge inform how we build our cit­ies and make places.

Landry raises an import­ant issue about who we charge with the respons­ib­il­ity to plan and build our cit­ies. In most cases those dis­cip­lines which offer rich oppor­tun­it­ies for under­stand­ing human use of space, and of the effect of our envir­on­ment on our health and hap­pi­ness, are excluded from city mak­ing in favour of those who provide tech­nical solu­tions. This may be one of the reas­ons why indices of hap­pi­ness and well­being far lower than they should be con­sid­er­ing the prosper­ity of many of our cities.

What is the role of government?

Landry pos­its that the role of gov­ern­ment (whether cent­ral, local, or any entity with power) is to provide the con­di­tions to allow people to express them­selves well. Gov­ern­ment can either stim­u­late or stifle cre­ativ­ity through reg­u­lat­ory and incent­ive struc­tures: good struc­tures enable bet­ter solu­tions, and allow room for indi­vidu­als to respond to chal­lenges and opportunities.

As Landry says in this video, a lack of ideas is never the prob­lem, the ques­tion to ask is: what are the nature of the bar­ri­ers around hav­ing ideas?

Allow­ing cre­ativ­ity to occur is allow­ing explor­a­tion and exper­i­ment­a­tion. Good gov­ern­ment should encour­age curi­os­ity. Ima­gin­a­tion is a spring­board for cre­ativ­ity and innov­a­tion, from which an inven­tion, new pro­cess or product might spring. Landry says “there’s a seam­less thread of things which cre­ate the lifeblood of a city. The key point is the capa­city to interact.”

Landry goes on to make the con­nec­tion between the role of gov­ern­ment in encour­aging ima­gin­a­tion and the key role place plays in stim­u­lat­ing cre­at­ive think­ing. In addi­tion to cre­at­ing an atmo­sphere con­du­cive to innov­a­tion, cit­ies need an envir­on­ment which pro­motes inter­ac­tion, a phys­ical set­ting which encour­ages people in pub­lic space to have a con­ver­sa­tion, cross-fertilise ideas, and see things from a dif­fer­ent per­spect­ive. As Landry notes, this is why it is so import­ant to note the genu­ine dif­fer­ences between a busi­ness park and shop­ping mall, for example, and a street or cre­at­ive hub. Genu­inely social, multi-use spaces provide a more fer­tile envir­on­ment for cre­at­ive pollination.

Why do cit­ies every­where want to be “cre­at­ive cities”?

What star­ted as a small idea, ask­ing “can we do things dif­fer­ently?”, has grown into a global move­ment. Cit­ies all over the world are recog­nising that we have entered a new era, described by some as the “know­ledge eco­nomy”, and yet most of our cit­ies and gov­ern­ment struc­tures were built for an indus­trial age, so cit­ies need to look at their strengths and chal­lenges from a new per­spect­ive. Another key shift has been from the dom­in­ance of nation states to the renewed import­ance of cit­ies as global centres in themselves.

Landry says cit­ies are now pla­cing a focus on being “iden­ti­fable in some sort of way”, and cites two stud­ies to high­light the new mind­set that makes this essen­tial. As recently as 15 years ago, 80% of people moved to a new city for a job oppor­tun­ity, whereas in a study con­duc­ted by CEOs For Cit­ies last year, 64% chose the city before the job.

This is prompt­ing city lead­ers and makers to ask: what makes people choose one city over another?

Well­being and qual­ity of life play a major part, in walk­able, access­ible places, where they can have a rich exper­i­ence and can do many things in one day. They want dis­tinct­ive, “authen­tic”, exper­i­ences, which in the glob­al­ised world we live in means tak­ing a little from every­where, with a local twist. Landry says the chal­lenge is for cit­ies to be “glob­ally ori­ented but loc­ally focused” — cre­at­ing real places and genu­ine qual­ity of life for people at a human scale while ensur­ing the abil­ity to con­nect and com­pete with the world.

Which cre­at­ive city ideas do you want to learn more about? Is your city adapt­ing to the inform­a­tion age? Share your thoughts and join the dis­cus­sion below.