Seven UNESCO creative cities got together a couple of weeks ago to discuss how their tourist industries can best profit from their status as creative cities. According to this article in The Santa Fe New Mexican the representatives agreed to organise a conference on creative tourism in 2008. We’re waiting for the first creative cities […]

…for the last two years:
The Creative Cities Leadership Team presented its report, Imagine a Toronto….Strategies for a Creative City, to the City of Toronto and Province of Ontario on July 24th. Strategies for Creative Cities started in December 2004 and culminated with the release of today’s report. It was a joint venture between Toronto and […]

“The Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity has designated Montreal as “UNESCO City of Design” as part of the Creative Cities Network,” announced today Gerald Tremblay, Mayor of Montreal, and Benoit Labonte, member of the executive committee responsible for culture, heritage and design.
With this honour, Montreal becomes the first North American city to join the recent […]

The debate about the best predictor of economic well-being in cities remain unresolved. Read this editorial in Times Online about a survey carried out by Associated Press. To some unnamed experts (I’m getting curious) it is most important for cities to be attractive to young educated people.

On Saturday, 1 April the City of Amsterdam will receive a unique present. (Let’s assume it’s not a joke.) The Amsterdam Creativity Exchange (ACX) has decided to give the Dutch capital ‘an Alderman for Creativity’. The ACX was established last year and acts as a platform where policy makers, creative enterprises and artists can meet. […]

Another contribution to the on-going debate about the promises of the ‘creative city’ and the rather more black-painted approach of the ‘divided city’. Read Joel Kotkin’s opinion in The Australian. To find out more about Kotkin’s references to Berlin’s efforts to become a creative city, this article in the International Herald Tribune might be worth […]

Auckland City is delighted with the central government’s steps toward supporting economic growth in Auckland through the development of key infrastructure in the city.
Earlier this month, the government announced part of the economic transformation agenda was to prioritise and support funding for infrastructure in Auckland city.
“This kind of support is crucial to Auckland’s economic development,” […]

When talking about ‘creative cities’ there is a strong tendency just to think about creative industries. Often, creative industries are seen as catalysts for neighbourhood revitalization. However, there are more ways to creatively regenerate deprived areas and communities. The following info has been given to me by David Barrie, Channel4Television.
In 2002, Channel 4 Television decided […]

A report prepared by New York’s Center for an Urban Future shows the Big Apple is slowly losing its creative set.
Although New York is still the “unrivaled center of the creative economy in the U.S.” (8.3 percent of all the people employed in creative industries work in New York)some NY creative industries have gradually lost […]

So much for the revival of (inner) cities. ‘Look beyond the tourist districts’, Joel Kotkin writes in this lengthy article in The American Enterprise Online.
The author draws attention to the state of American cities, showing how Katrina uncovered a whole lot of urban problems that were actually being played down by all the talks about […]