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The creativity fix
<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt">The notion of a "creative class" is contentious to say the least, and even more difficult to accept when the premise for its supposedly existence is in no way demonstrated. Class has existed for a very long time, so has creativity and the capacity of some sections of society to 'buy' creativity... does it make it a "creative class'? Nevertheless for some reason this notion has become a buzz word within some circles, particularly local councils. Having read some (too many) of Florida's claims, I find the notion of a "creative class" too simplistic, too lazy and too classist--if not also racist. If nothing else, more of the same, but with a dangerous difference—it legitimises the present conditions. Detachment, stupidity, indulgence (for those who can indulge) and inaction under the cover of ‘creativity’ are bad news, more so in these critical times. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt">It is a concern that councils/municipalities continue to regurgitate the ‘creative class’ gibberish—surely councils can do better than that. </span>So, I am rather glad to find the following article which places a question mark to this easy to consume notion of a ‘creative class’ elite and the want-to-be ‘creative’. </span> </p>
<div style="margin-left: 40px" class="author">Source: <a href="http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html">Eurozine</a>, by <a href="http://www.eurozine.com/authors/peck.html">Jamie Peck</a></div>
<h1 style="margin-left: 40px"><a href="http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html"><span style="font-size: x-large">The creativity fix</span></a></h1>
<p style="margin-left: 40px" class="subTitle">In Richard Florida's "creative city" theory, the creative class dissolves the classical division between the productive bourgeoisie and the bohemian thereby giving rise to a new creative subject. Jamie Peck discusses the implementation of these ideas in contemporary cities and shows how capital investments intended to attract the creative class to the city prioritize an urban middle class. "Creativity strategies have been crafted to co-exist with urban social problems, not to solve them," writes Peck. "It should come as no surprise, then, that the creative capitals exhibit higher rates of socioeconomic inequality than other cities."</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 40px" class="article">Creativity is the new black. An increasingly fashionable urban-development script has it that an historically distinctive "creative economy" – powered by raw human talent, as cool as it is competitive – is displacing sclerotic, organization-era capitalism. The prime movers in this new new economy are members of the so-called Creative Class, a mobile elite whose finicky lifestyle preferences increasingly shape the geographies of economic growth. We are told that cities – like corporations – have become embroiled in an endless "war for talent", as flows of creative individuals have become the fundamental vectors of innovation-rich growth. And lo, there is man in black at the centre of this burgeoning creativity fad – Richard Florida, who makes frequent recourse to sartorial signifiers in his best-selling primers on the creative economy. As an architect and popularizer of the creative class thesis, Florida has been feted around the world as a cool-cities guru. His germinal texts on the creativity thesis serve, simultaneously, as cliff notes for Creative Economics 101, as how-to manuals for anxious city leaders and opportunistic policymakers... </p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt"><o:p><b>Continue reading:</b> <a href="http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html">http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html</a></o:p><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><b>Find</b> other great articles in this Eurozine special entitled "<a href="http://www.eurozine.com/comp/focalpoints/cityasstage.html">the city as stage for social upheaval</a>"</p>
<div style="margin-left: 40px" class="author">Source: <a href="http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html">Eurozine</a>, by <a href="http://www.eurozine.com/authors/peck.html">Jamie Peck</a></div>
<h1 style="margin-left: 40px"><a href="http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html"><span style="font-size: x-large">The creativity fix</span></a></h1>
<p style="margin-left: 40px" class="subTitle">In Richard Florida's "creative city" theory, the creative class dissolves the classical division between the productive bourgeoisie and the bohemian thereby giving rise to a new creative subject. Jamie Peck discusses the implementation of these ideas in contemporary cities and shows how capital investments intended to attract the creative class to the city prioritize an urban middle class. "Creativity strategies have been crafted to co-exist with urban social problems, not to solve them," writes Peck. "It should come as no surprise, then, that the creative capitals exhibit higher rates of socioeconomic inequality than other cities."</p>
<div id="body">
<p style="margin-left: 40px" class="article">Creativity is the new black. An increasingly fashionable urban-development script has it that an historically distinctive "creative economy" – powered by raw human talent, as cool as it is competitive – is displacing sclerotic, organization-era capitalism. The prime movers in this new new economy are members of the so-called Creative Class, a mobile elite whose finicky lifestyle preferences increasingly shape the geographies of economic growth. We are told that cities – like corporations – have become embroiled in an endless "war for talent", as flows of creative individuals have become the fundamental vectors of innovation-rich growth. And lo, there is man in black at the centre of this burgeoning creativity fad – Richard Florida, who makes frequent recourse to sartorial signifiers in his best-selling primers on the creative economy. As an architect and popularizer of the creative class thesis, Florida has been feted around the world as a cool-cities guru. His germinal texts on the creativity thesis serve, simultaneously, as cliff notes for Creative Economics 101, as how-to manuals for anxious city leaders and opportunistic policymakers... </p>
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<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt"><o:p><b>Continue reading:</b> <a href="http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html">http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-06-28-peck-en.html</a></o:p><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><b>Find</b> other great articles in this Eurozine special entitled "<a href="http://www.eurozine.com/comp/focalpoints/cityasstage.html">the city as stage for social upheaval</a>"</p>
Comments
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<p>I agree! The "Creativity Fix" article should be made available in councils along side with presentations that promote the notion of a "creative class". The following paragraph sums it all:</p>
<p style="margin-left: 40px">"alongside the gratification of middle-class consumption desires and the lubrication both of flexible labour markets and gentrifying housing markets. The creativity script also subtly relegitimizes regressive social redistributions within the city: the designated overclass of creatives are held to have <i>earned</i> their superior position in the creative city, by virtue of raw talent and creative capital, validated through the market, and it is they who must be catered to in what amounts to a post-progressive urban policy. The lumpen classes of service and manual workers, on the other hand, are so positioned in the new socioeconomic structure by virtue of their creative deficits, and they play little or no positive role in Florida's account of the creative economy. They must be content with lectures on creative bootstrapping and – in lieu of their own creative awakening – the benefit of downward-trickling positive externalities like the opportunity to wait tables for the creative bohemians. .."
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