Planning Creativity

[escotregen]

Was at a really interesting seminar today from the Centre for Cultural Policy Research at the Gilmorehill Centre. The theme was Creativity and the Artist.
Seems that when the Guru Richard Florida was recently on one of his whistle stop tours, some of the Glasgow Council people got a hold of him and were keen to learn how they could 'get onto the creative cities thing' and make appropriate plans. He seemingly somewhat tartly told them they they 'could not plan creativity'. His advice was that the best local authorities can do, is just lay down the local infrastructure, stand back and let creativity happen. Florida is the guy who identified culturally diverse minorities as essential to the regeneration of creative cities throughout the world. For the popular press, the presence of a vibrant gay minority population was one of his most controversial indicators on this. It's not just gays he uses as indicators, it's all sorts of cultural minorities - the bad news is that Glasgow scores very poorly on this diversity score, even in comparison within the UK.
Some of the participants at the seminar strongly argued against Florida's remarks about 'not planning'; they argued that the local authority, along with other stakeholders, must actively plan ahead.
I was thinking about how this argument relates to preserving our built heritage in Glasgow. On the one hand the Council 'just standing back' seems to result in odd wee destructive fires in listed buildings followed by demolition and ugly redevelopment - on the other hand the Planning Laws seem sometimes unproductive for all concerned and sometimes seem designed to generate opposition and confrontation on new developments (versus conservation) when what is needed is partnership and compromise.
Incidentally, talking about redevelopment versus conservation, has anyone seen the proposed development by Bishop Loch Developments at the old Govan Graving (?) Dock.... Ugh!

[Closet Classicist]

I toyed with bring up Richard Florida as part of my talk earlier this year escotregen. Once you get beyond the gay minority bit that the press always does lazily pounce on what he has to say does make a lot of sense. Wasn't sure how well it would go down with the AHSS though but there does appear to be a corrollation between what he is on about and the built heritage. Its something I'm looking into. Have to say that I agree with him you can't plan it. But you can steer things in the right direction and help establish the conditions in which it flourishes. I'm willing to bet Glasgow between 1830 and 1914 fell right into Richard Florida's definition of a creative city.

[escotregen]

Maybe something we should discuss then? If you want a collaborator I could utilise my Cultural Planning, SURF etc. connections. As you will be aware these things a case of well-forward planning, and ideally timing it piggy back with something else - maybe one of the countervailing Gurus might be around in the UK at the right time? I see where your coming from with the AHSS. However, thinking on last weeks presentation. I can see how the Florida approach could have been sold as 'a truly creative city would prevent some of the attrition of built heritage we see in Paisley'
... and maybe this is something to be cross-referred to the earlier thread on 'A new role for HG'

[Targer]

There was an article in a recent copy of The Guard entitled "Intercultural Innovation" from the point of view of creativity/cultural diversity. An org. that was mentioned was Comedia which sponsers research into the area. If one reads between the lines it appears that creativity will be achieved with selective cultural diversity. There does seem to be some merit to the idea. Interesting that Glasgow is not mentioned in the article only Bristol, Newcastle etc etc.

[escotregen]

Targer thanks for the mention of Comedia, I did not know they sponsor research and I will take this further in the context of this thread. I assume Glasgow was not mentioned because of its low scoring on diversity, as mentioned at the Tuesday event I was at.

[Closet Classicist]

Interesting stuff. Here are some links to what was mentioned above

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features ... 07,00.html

http://www.comedia.org.uk/index_1.htm

http://www.corecities.com/coreDEV/about.html

Didn't know about Comedia but there are some useful documents there. The recent Oldham strategy with the exception of cultural diversity has parallels to Paisley. I was also interested to read their document about reusing redundant churches. Dates from 1993 but the idea of dropping VAT on churches prior to 1939 is planted there. Treasury has eventually taken that up. Hopefully this will extend to all listed buildings eventually.

The last one, the core cities link is interesting as both Glasgow and Edinburgh have approached the Office of the deputy Prime Minister about joining this. It is arguable that this initiative helped kick start a renewed interest in the revitalisation of our cities. Unfortunately one of the unintended side effects of devolution is Glasgow and Edinburgh's exclusion from this list though they should very much be present on it.

[Closet Classicist]

The core cities thing was kind of topical because:

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/hi/news/5036139.html

Glasgow and Edinburgh appear to be out performing the core cities