Today marked the publication in Infopresse's weekly newsletter of a commentary on cities' rankings in terms of creativity and liveability. Meanwhile, Professor Andy Pratt (King's College London) also marked the point by delivering a talk at HEC Montreal's Summer School on Management of Creativity. His words were those of an intellectual who undeniably has devoted more time than anyone else at interpreting what the expression "creative city" means, where it comes from, and where it takes us to. Although, for those of us who doubt the necessity to reify cities using a label like "creative", the temptation to reject the expression at once may be strong Pratt considers that we would remove ourselves (and our readers) from the analytical possibilities of a phenomenon that, despite its debatable nature, is "out there in the world" and thus should be commented. Such was his goal, one in which, in our humble opinion, he succeeded beautifully.

 

First is the idea that definitions of creativity used in managerial and marketing narratives act as sources of performative stabilization which, in turn, serve to promote various forms of liberalism. The emphasis put on foreign direct investment using tax breaks, labour arrangements and direct advertisement has even led serious critics to describe the creative city concept as falling under the realm of methodological neo-liberalism. This trend considers inequality as falling outside the realm of interest: the notion that the lower socio-economic classes must continue to struggle has infiltrated sub-discourses to a point that in certain cases, the actors themselves have come to adopt them as distinctive features of their identity. This bohemian, "art for art's sake" discourse has been rationalized ex post partly as a consequence of the emphasis put on the disconnect between creativity and wealth. To be truly creative, it is believed, one must be poor, and remain so. In practical terms, the romantic impetus which led to scholar's renewed interest in the practice of arts, culture and creativity from the 18th century onwards, has very little "romanticism" left to offer.

 

Numerous implications may be derived from cities' attempts at branding themselves for an "international market". The question asked in the Infopresse contribution – that of who uses and who produces cities' rankings and for what purpose – is directly tackled by Pratt. "Although we would probably all agree that the number of garbage collections, amount of green space, opera houses, etc. are quite important to us", he says, cities chose narrow sets of elements to structure a branding that is likely to prove more exclusive than inclusive from an city-centric point of view. As the rankings are aimed at attracting foreign capital, the individuals targeted will be international executives who can use the information to "sell" locations to their shareholders and stakeholders (and wives!).

 

From the point of view of local governance, this obviously means that, to draw the required FDI and obtain "the magic growth, the magic jobs and everything else", leaders need to focus on the very specific elements that please your audience. Thus, the need to appear funky, but not too funky. The "cleaning up" of Times Square and of certain areas of San Francisco's served precisely the purposes of building semi-controlled areas where retail could flourish and real estate value appreciate. That said, the incapacity of "creative cities" to find all-encompassing narratives to describe their inner workings leave out more than they include, leading to a "marginalization" of the discourse towards upper classes' preoccupations: the creative labelling of cities serves retailers and industrial employers more than anyone else.

 

 

Thirdly, what Pratt calls the "Florida argument" – the technology-talent-tolerance tryptic that constitutes the basis of the creative city magic – is that of a cultural payoff in terms of returns through FDI. The cultural and creative industries are, thus, only concerned indirectly : you get a cultural dividend out of it, but as an intermediary good. Because artistic activities very often do not produce great economic wealth (or are not perceived as such – suffice to mention the current Canadian government's position on the matter), they are instrumented by developers in order to draw "real wealth-producing activities" : engineering, high tech, industrial activites, etc. Thus, we focus on the consumption of creative output rather than on the production itself.

 

The process of instrumentation of sui generis cultural, artistic and creative activities may be looked at from a chronological point of view using case studies. One such case is found in the promotion of Montreal's "Griffintown" where, Andy Pratt says, "the usual happens". At first, a form of "artistic gentrification" where cultural actors and artistic creators are sent in as "storm troopers of gentrification" : they go in the wasteland, create funky lofts, open galleries, attract (wealthy) individuals who come along. The process naturally draws the attention of entrepreneurial developers who build condoes, live by the galleries, build coffees. The rent goes up and, ultimately, artists are booted out. In this process, Pratt says, "cities love artists… temporarily".

 

As we stated earlier, creative cities are evaluated on consumption rather than production aspects. As creativity certainly isn't a cost-free process, this focalization certainly isn't neutral from the point of view of individuals who chose to engage in these activities. Those that run at the heel of gentrification that supposedly is benefiting the artists, are only doing so as long as it suits preoccupations that are, in essence, unartistic. It leaves the state, through education, and the artists, through free labour or inefficient time allocation, to fund the necessary investments in training, revenue cost and self-promotion. These practices, for sure, aren't as creative as some would like us to think.