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Future cities: what’s creativity got to do with it?

By Stephen Jones - posted Friday, 4 May 2007


Charles Landry has just finished his appointment as a “thinker in residence”, in Perth. He has delivered his final report, Perth: Town or City?, which provides a series of ideas and recommendations for policy makers in determining the future planning and economic development of the city. Landry, an internationally recognised commentator on such issues, has completed a similar exercise in other Australian and European cities.

An underlying theme of the report is the importance of “creativity” as an ingredient in policy making. Writers such as Landry, Richard Florida and Charles Leadbeater, have visited Australia in recent years arguing that creativity is a source of competitive advantage for those cities that are somehow able to promote it through government policies. Perth, like other cities, is looking for a competitive advantage in the global economy.

Landry argues that his approach has taken creativity to a new level. He argues his work is a progression on the culture led and creative industries approach to one where creativity needs to become embedded in the thinking of the city.

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Being a creative city involves: “Taking measured risks, wide-spread leadership, a sense of going somewhere, being determined but not deterministic, having the strength to go beyond the political cycle and crucially being strategically principled and tactically flexible”.

According to this line of thinking creativity has become the currency of the age, even more important than resources or finance.

My concern is that the approach taken in the Perth: Town or City? report has missed an opportunity to provide substantial directions for Perth, and in turn other Australian cities, as they seek new initiatives for development. More could have been done to provide guidance and/or inspiration to implement much needed improvements in policy making in the Australian context.

In examining Perth: Town or City? to find substantial ideas and suggestions, there seems to be little evidence of the central element being promoted - “creativity”.

The report argues that Perth needs to decide if it is a town or a city because “city” thinking, as opposed to “town” thinking, finds more creative solutions to problems and issues. In this regard “Perth needs city attitudes if it is to fulfill its potential”.

According to the report the fundamental issue for Perth, like other Australian cities, is that it is over governed, and as a result is clogged by red tape and regulations that stifle creativity and the emergence of city thinking.

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One solution offered is the ideal of amalgamating the local councils throughout the city to create a mega-council just like Brisbane: this, according to the report, would establish regulatory consistency and reduce opportunities for bureaucratic inertia.

This argument has a long history in Perth: local government amalgamation has been debated in most Australian cities since the turn of the 20th century. In Perth’s case nothing really prevents amalgamation but it would need to be the result of a voluntary agreement between local governments that most have chosen to avoid for a range of reasons. There’s been no push from residents, local councillors or the state government for this to occur.

Leaving aside the debate on the pros and cons of large urban local governments, the recommendation seems to miss the point on creativity. The prevailing view in the literature is that creativity tends to emerge from difference rather than sameness. Large local governments mean large bureaucracies that seek to establish consistency and economies of scale.

Promoting difference is something that Perth residents tend to find attractive. Surely a more relevant argument would have been to provide suggestions on how local councils could work with their communities to identify and encourage local creative ideas that could see Perth emerge as a city with vibrancy and difference throughout the metropolitan area, rather than the one-size-fits-all approach that a mega-council would encourage.

The report moves on to promote the concept of “creative bureaucracy”. This is an “organisational form that is adaptive, responsive, flexible and collaborative”: characteristics that are highly desirable and worthwhile, but the report fails to provide us with any markers to show us the way.

In essence all the report gives us is that a creative bureaucracy promotes a pattern of thinking that searches for positive responses rather than negative resistance - a “yes” rather than “no” approach: something the report argues as critical if Perth is to think like a city.

There is nothing particularly unique in this approach as economic development agencies have adopted similar mantras since the mid 1980s, for example, this state is “open for business” or this city has a “can do approach”. Again the report is covering well established ground that has been part of the literature and government policy for decades.

What is missing is some guidance on how governments can deal with one of the most critical contemporary issues - how to get the most effective results from the inherent conflicts between market mechanisms and government structures.

More relevant ideas in the report could have covered how the juxtaposed functions of regulation and promotion of development can work together in the one bureaucracy; this would be directed at both state and local government. For example, how do town planners (regulators) and economic development professionals (promoters) work together to support new ideas and provide new opportunities? How do we overcome the institutional constraints ingrained since federation that restrict the capacity of policy makers to pursue radical policy initiatives?

A recent paper by DEMOS promotes the more substantial idea of “collaborative bureaucracy”, where agencies pursue a collective approach that establishes forums to bring institutions and citizens together to identify shared problems and work collaboratively on solutions. One example is the Victorian Government’s community strengthening strategy.

A collaborative approach would seem to be a more manageable set of parameters than the idea of creativity in a federal system where multiple bureaucracies are needed to deal effectively with development issues.

The final area the report covers is the need for leadership. The argument is that Perth must move from strategic to visionary leadership if it is to realise any of its potential opportunities. According to the report the main task of visionary leaders is to “re-assess the clutter of regulations for the new age, which so often block initiative”.

The report cites examples where leaders and decision makers in other cities have taken an alternative approach to prevailing decision making styles and then labels this as creative. A more sober assessment would suggest this is essentially lateral thinking. By advocating thinking through a problem and identifying the best solution is something that most of us would support, but to argue that it is creativity devalues the concept.

The need for visionary charismatic leaders to promote creativity and take us to a promised land has become such a cliché that it could only appeal to the naïve.

It is unfortunate that reports such as this contribute to the situation where creativity is losing its meaning. What Landry promotes is essentially looking at issues from different perspectives and identifying new solutions. Historically solutions to development issues have depended on a range of factors that usually come down to who has the money and who has the power. Whether the solution can be seen as creative or not depends on who is making the assessment. By arguing that your ideas are creative can often just mean they are different to the prevailing approaches.

But there is something far more serious here than the subjective judgments surrounding the use of creativity as tool for development. Creativity has become a commodity that promotes development as a key element in policy making that will lead to a form of economic and social nirvana wherever it is applied. Surely this approach is setting policy makers up to fail.

The bureaucratic hierarchical structure, which dominates the public sector, is antithetical to creativity. The workings of public sector agencies are based on conformity to establish equity and equality, values, in the Australian context, which are regarded more highly than creativity. What we really need to hear more about is improving accountability, transparency and legitimacy; this is where Perth: Town or City? could have made an important contribution.

It is regrettable that there is nothing of substance in this report to provide direction and nothing to measure achievement; critical ingredients for change to occur in public sector agencies. We are given a series platitudes that stroke the ego of those who wish to see their ideas emerge over the current mess. There is nothing to help prevent a similar report being produced in another 5 or 10 years, which would only serve to reinforce a sense of failure at a lack of achievement.

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About the Author

Stephen Jones is a Perth based writer and policy analyst.

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