Global Cities Blog
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When I was working on the European Capital of Culture in Liverpool I came across a project that set me thinking and which came to mind again this week.
Sir Bob Scott, Chair of the Liverpool Culture Company, shared with me an idea he was developing around just what ignites the spark of creativity within a city. Bob had been following the work of Professor Franco Bianchini who’d noted there were places that had faced a range of urban challenges yet were considered innovative, original and surprising. The contention was that a city was not creative in spite of its dark side but because of it.
From this Bob delivered the “Cities on the Edge” conference which drew together speakers from Marseille, Gdansk, Bremen, Istanbul and Naples, as well as Liverpool, and which formed one of the centre-pieces of the European Capital of Culture activities.
Bob told the delegates their cities all had cheekiness, unruliness, talent, creativity, humour and edginess. They were all sea-ports and had suffered economic decline throughout the 20th century leading to upheaval, social problems and crime. None were capital cities, indeed they were often troublesome to those in national power, and they were geographically on the edge. It was this edginess that made them places welcoming to risk takers, where the push against conventionality was embraced and where creativity flourished.
The word edgy could be defined as irritable, sharp, daring and trend-setting. Liverpool is all of these and surely this was at the heart of what made Liverpool’s most famous sons, the Beatles, what they were and gave rise to their creativity which shook the world and changed all of our lives forever.
A few days ago, I met several designers from the city of Shenzhen which could be described as China’s most creative city. I think their evident great pride in their city prevented them from acknowledging to me that perhaps creativity could emerge from social difficulties but they did point to upheaval (Shenzhen has grown from being a village to an economic jewel and a design powerhouse in just 30 years) along with its geographical location, close to the sea, in producing a place that is naturally open to new ideas and this helps to drive their creativity.
Also this week I came across an article by Robert Neuwirth in “Scientific American” in which he takes issue with the view that those living on the edges of some of the world’s greatest cities do not contribute economically. He illustrates his arguments with example after example of the innovation and productivity shown by those living in the Makoko area of Lagos, the global trade links built from Mumbai’s Dharavi community, and the successful entrepreneurs coming out of the Kibera in Nairobi.
Truly, you need the grit in the oyster in order to make the pearl.
