Creative city
The creative city is a concept that argues creativity should be considered a strategic factor in urban development. In addition to cities being efficient and fair, a creative city provides places, experiences, favorites, attractions, and opportunities to foster creativity among its citizens. Creativity and imagination in urban activities The creative city was seen as an aspirational call to encourage open-mindedness and imagination, implying a dramatic impact on organizational culture. Its philosophy emphasizes the importance of creative potential in urban planning, specifically in a Post-industrial setting. It posits that conditions need to be created for people to think, plan and act with imagination in harnessing opportunities or addressing seemingly intractable urban problems. This requires infrastructure beyond the hardware—buildings, roads or sewage to include soft infrastructures. Creative infrastructure is a combination of the hard and the soft. The latter includes a city's mindset, how it approaches opportunities and problems; its atmosphere, incentives and regulatory regime. To be a creative city the soft infrastructure includes: A highly skilled and flexible labor force; dynamic thinkers, creators and implementers. The creative city is not only for artists and those involved in the creative economy, although they play an important role. Creativity can come from any source, including anyone who addresses issues in an inventive way, be it a social worker, a businessperson, a scientist or a public servant. Creativity is not only about having ideas but also having the capacity to implement them. It advocates that a culture of creativity be embedded in how urban stakeholders operate. By encouraging and legitimizing the use of imagination within the public, private and community spheres, the ideas bank of possibilities and potential solutions to any urban problem will be broadened. The creative city identifies, nurtures, attracts and sustains talent so it is able to mobilize ideas, talents and creative organizations. The built environment—the stage and the setting—is crucial for establishing the milieu. A creative milieu is a place that contains the necessary requirements in terms of hard and soft infrastructure to generate a flow of ideas and inventions. A milieu can be a building, a street, an area or neighborhood, a city or a region. The popularity of creativity came about because of the increased recognition that the world, along with its economic, social and cultural structures, was changing dramatically. This was driven in part by the information technology revolution. Coping with these changes required a re-assessment of cities' resources and potential and a process of necessary re-invention on all fronts. Cultural resources are embodied in peoples' creativity, skills and talents. They are not only things like buildings, but also symbols, activities and the repertoire of local products in crafts, manufacturing and services. Urban cultural resources include the historical, industrial and artistic heritage of assets including architecture, urban landscapes or landmarks. They also include local and indigenous traditions of public life, festivals, rituals, or stories as well as hobbies and enthusiasms. Language, food and cooking, leisure activities, and fashion are all part of a city's cultural resources, as