Hallmark of Creative Cities
Creative cities are ‘not comfortable places at all’, says Peter Hall. This goes against the current conventional wisdom which suggests that in order to attract the ‘creative class’, cities need to be nice and relaxing places to live in. Hall takes a contrarian view but in his case, the perspective is developed through a deep appreciation of history.
History informs us that ‘creative cities, creative urban milieux, are places of great social and intellectual turbulence’[i]. This is true of Athens in the 5th century, Florence in the 14th century, London in Shakespear’s time, Vienna in the late 18th and 19th centuries, Paris between 1870 and 1910, and Berlin in the 1920s. It is also true of Calcutta between 1820 and 1955.
Creative cities are not necessarily wealthy, but they are usually the centre of politics within their respective nation states. They are also decidedly bourgeois societies. Creativity and capital works together in ways that are not obvious. Trade of goods and services often goes hand in hand with exchange of new ideas. Hall is perhaps even more politically incorrect when he emphasises the importance of ‘elites’ in the development of creative cities. Arguing that creative cities are also ‘high-culture cities’, he suggests that this culture is ‘fostered by a minority and catered for the tastes of that minority.’
[i] Hall, P. (2000). Creative cities and economic development. Urban studies, 37(4), 639–649.
