The Creative City – A Feasible Utopia? A Research about creative city planning in four Dutch cities

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2008
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en
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In recent years, concepts like ‘the creative city’, ‘the creative class’ and ‘the creative industry’ started to become very popular with urban managers and city planners. Arguably the most important reason for this was the appearance of the book ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’, written by Richard Florida. In this book, Florida stated that a new group of (creative) people emerges in Western cities that is involved with creative thinking and decision-making on a professional level. This creative class prefers open and tolerant environments and places where they could meet like-minded people to share creative ideas with. Florida stated that cities that attract the creative class usually possess the so called three T ’ s that stand for Talent, Tolerance and Technology. Cities that are able to attract creative people, often characterize their selves with a large share of profession groups belonging to the creative industry. The creative industry could be defined as a specific business sector that produces goods and services that are the result of individual or cooperative creative effort and entrepreneurship. Content and symbolism are the most important elements of these products. Consumers or commercial buyers purchas e them because they appeal to some sort of meaning. This meaning functions as the basis for a certain experience. To that respect, the creative industry plays an important role in the development and maintenance of lifestyles and cultural identities in the society. The creative industry consists of professions in the sphere of design, media and expressive arts and also includes professions that are involved with distribution, publishing and business services. The creative industry is a growing sector that often involves a large amount of money. Cities with a flourishing creative industry are often cities that characterize themselves with economic prosperity, that’s the reason why there happens to be such a ‘rush’ at the moment and why cities are desperately seeking for ways to become creative.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen