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Paper
presented at the Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für
Kanada-Studien (GKS), Grainau 1998 1. Introduction: cities as cultural
construct
1The city is a very powerful word
(Williams, 1975, p. 9).1 The city is one of the central discursive
sites of society; e.g. cultural theorists might refer to
the city as the center of civilization (Mumford 1995,
23), politicians can use the notion of urban decline when
they mean to speak about social fragmentation, or
economic stakeholders will deploy the rhetoric of the
metropolis when they talk about economic growth or the
concentration of political power. Thus, it is through the
discourse of the city that a society articulates itself.
To speak of the city is to articulate who we are, how we
want to live, and what our society does or should look
like (Beauregard, 1993, p. 322).
2Cities are cultural constructs and, thus,
part and parcel of changing historical and geographical
realities (Domosh, 1992, p. 475). In recent years more
and more urban researchers are deeply convinced that we
are witnessing the emergence of profoundly new types of
cities and urban developments (Sorkin (ed.) 1992, Zukin,
1993, Watson/Gibson (eds.) 1995). Modernity has created
its very own type of cities and the shift towards
postmodernism, postindustrialism, and postfordism will do
so, likewise. Whilst there is broad consens about the
occurence of intense ruptures in metropolitan
development, there is less communality amongst urban
researchers how to frame and analyze, how to describe and
imagine the manifold changes in urban landscapes today.
Some researchers have stressed the tendency towards
decentralization and the dissolution of the traditional
city and engage in the discourse on edge cities (Garreau,
1991) and Zwischenstädte" (Sieverts 1998) as
new types of urban sprawl. Another strand of literature
points into the opposite direction and detects a revival
of the urban, a renaissance of inner city life and,
thereby, a strengthening of the central position of the
metropolis within postindustrial societies (Ley 1996, pp.
350ff). Are cities gaining in importance or are they
loosing their central position in society? For what
economic, political and social/cultural reasons do
particular segments of a society engage in the discourse
and material realities of cities? And how are we to grasp
the role of cities, metropolis, and suburbia in Canada?
3The city offers a reality too complex and
diverse, too disparate and plural, in order to be
represented as a whole. This observation was valid for
the modern industrial metropolis, already. And it holds
all the more true, nowadays, due to the accelerating
trends of divergence and difference in regional and
national pathways of urbanization. In the North American
context, for example, the notion of the Canadian city has
emerged only recently as a new and inspiring way to think
about urban features in contrast and comparison to
American urban forms (Helbrecht, 1996). Furthermore, new
urban developments seem to transgress the traditionally
neat ordering of spaces in the city. The
caleidoscope-city, the city of contrast via processes of
fragmentation and polarization has been the object of
much debate. Therefore, the tendency towards urban
differentiation makes it ever more complicated if not
impossible to speak of the city in a broad general sense.
4In this paper I will focuse on the rise of a
very particular new meaning of the urban in Canada that
is in the state of nascence. I would like to argue that
we can observe a new city in emergence, the rise of new
urban spaces, symbols and discourses on the city: the
creative metropolis. This creative metropolis is, of
course, like any other representation of the city a
partial one. But it has become a strategic site within
the city because it is situated at the centre of the
postindustrial/postmodern economy and culture. The
creative city is striving for hegemony in the discourse
on the urban due to its particular position in the
workings of power. In what follows I would first like to
situate my argument within the literature on the
contemporary role of the urban. Secondly, I would like to
discuss some empirical results on the locational pattern
and urban constructs of creative services in Vancouver.
Finally, I will try to discuss the meaning of the
creative metropolis in a more general context of
postmodern identity formation processes.
2. Urban transitions - Urban
assets
5The city is back on the societal agenda.
Whilst the urbanist literature of the 1970s and early
1980s was deeply sceptical about the future role of
cities in postindustrial societies and some researchers
even have assumed that cities might become obsolet
altogether due to the new transport and communication
technologies, in recent years, a renaissance and
rediscovery of the city has been observed (Amin/Graham,
1997, pp. 411ff). The urban revival poses the question
why postindustrial societies in spite of locationally
liberating technologies still produce and foster city
life? What are the assets of the urban, today? How is the
urban discourse organized? For the purpose of this paper,
three major strands of literature can be identified,
putting different arguments for the continuing vitality
of metropolitan areas to the fore.
The productive city of
agglomeration economies
6First, an economic literature focuses on the
transition of cities from a place of industry and
commerce to a place of advanced services, banking,
administration, and global control (Sassen 1991). In
cities like Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal most of the
producer services are highly concentrated in the Central
Business District (CBD). Indeed, Canada is a very good
example for the growth of service-based urbanization
processes where head offices and producer services make
for a corporate complex that consists of closely
interwoven economic networks downtown (Hutton/Ley 1987).
The evolving formation of a globalized, service-oriented
production complex is increasingly leading urban growth.
Economic explanations for the concentration of the
corporate complex in the inner city conventionally
emphasize the significance of linkages and face-to-face
contacts as the main rationale for the persistence of
cities in postindustrial societies. Thus, externalities
of co-location are considered to be essential (Schwartz,
1992, p. 18). Agglomeration economies still matter.
Especially with globalisation on the rise knowledge-based
economic activities like strategic face-to-face
transactions, interfirm linkages, etc. continue to
represent a main economic asset of cities.
The city of consumption
7A second strand of literature focuses on the
cultural assets of cities in these new times. With the
emergence of postindustrial society a new class has been
in the making to which quality-of-life-factors are of
growing importance. The notion of the liveable, convivial
city indicates a transformation in the meaning of the
urban, a change from a place of residential segregation
to a city of consumption and spectacle, where affluent
professionals occupy the inner city and display an urban
culture of consumption (Ley 1996, pp. 298ff). Gentrifiers
are the epitome of the city of consumption. And it can
well be argued that in this regard, too, Canadian cities
are at the forefront of postmodern urbanization
processes. Cities like Vancouver pursue a cumulative
growth strategy, where the service-based economic growth
induces and fosters the cultural transformation of the
city into a convivial city - and vice versa. Indeed,
Vancouver is an almost perfect example for these new
urban developments of complex interplays between economy
and culture (Ley 1979, Helbrecht, 1998). Here, in the
context of a boom town on the West Coast the combination
of the productive city and the city of consumption has
already been translated into public policies. The vision
of the regional planners in the Lower Mainland is to
create the epitome of the convivial metropolis. By
becoming the first urban region in the world to combine
economic vitality with the highest standards of
livability and environmental quality, Greater Vancouver
can represent in history what Athens is to democracy or
Vienna is to music" (Greater Vancouver Regional
District 1993, p. 5).
The cultural economy of cities
8Situated somewhat inbetween the two
frameworks of the productive city of
aggmlomeration economies and the city of
consumption a third literature on the
cultural economy of cities" is on the rise
(Scott 1997). This literature has only recently evolved
and points towards the growing interconnectedness and
even convergence between the spheres of cultural and
economic development. Two distinct discourses have
emerged which try to outline new recompositions of
cultural/economic assets of cities. First, a
consumption-side argument is made for a cultural economy
which emerges out of the needs for the production of the
convivial city. A convivial city does not only consist of
consumers, aestheticized urban landscapes and gentrified
neighbourhoods. Moreover, it requires a complex
arrangement of entertainment and cultural industries in
the sports, arts, media and education that provide for
and produce the leisure facilities, activities and events
in the city. At the turn of this century, tourism has
become one of the biggest industries worldwide and with
it a complex set of urban cultural infrastructures has
come along (Urry, 1995). Thus, the arts, entertainment
and cultural industries have come to play an important
role in urban restructuring (Bianchini et al., 1988).
They attract people to come downtown, enhance tourism and
convention attending (Whitt 1987). Even in declining old
industrial districts fostering the arts has become a
strategy for economic revitalisation.
9Second, in the postmodern age of commodity
design, the production of images, symbols and style take
up an ever increasing part of economic activities.
Economic goods are not only merely material. Rather what
becomes increasingly important is the sign-value of what
Allan Scott (1997, p. 321) has called cultural
products" or Lash and Urry coined postmodern
goods" (Lash/Urry 1994, p. 4). Cultural or
postmodern goods are infused with culture in that they
have a highly aesthetic content, identity, and function.
Based on this trend towards the postmodern economy
of signs" (Lash/Urry, 1994) manufacturing has become
more and more design-intensive. Not only traditionally
design-oriented sectors like jewelry, clothing or
furniture embody sign values and are dependend upon
cultural capital and aesthetic competence for their
economic success. Industrial design has also grown in
importance as a key component for the marketability of
consumer goods like cars, telephones, etc. Design has
become a point of sale (OConnor, 1996, pp. 241ff).
Thus, a whole range of cultural acitivities has emerged
within" the economy, from the sound designer
in car manufacturing to the advertising agency, that
circulates and bombards the consumers with messages about
the meanings of consumption. A design industry with a
whole range of creative services is on the
rise.
10Both literatures on the cultural economy (of
cities) are part of an intriguing debate on
postmodernism, consumer societies, the rise of the
aesthetic, the refiguring of the economic (Thrift/Olds
1996), politics of identity, individualization, the
reenchantment of the world, etc. (Beck, 1986, pp. 121ff,
Maffesoli, 1996). While most of these discourses are
based on a subtle consens that some drastic changes have
occured in the ways we perceive of the interplay between
economy and culture, in my opinion, within the research
on the cultural economy of cities a rather traditional
view of the economic and the cultural still prevails. The
argument I would like to establish is that while striving
for a merging of culture and capital, nevertheless, both
conceptualizations of the cultural economy, the
production and consumption-side arguments briefly
presented above, are still based on the binary of economy
and culture. Although it has become quite apparent that
the complexity of postmodern/postfordist/postindustrial
production does not allow for a strict separation of
culture and capital, anymore (Thrift/Olds 1996, p. 317),
a satisfactory change of perspective has yet to be
achieved. So far, the cultural economy of cities
continues to be analyzed in dualist ways. Either the
economic structures of the cultural industries are
scrutinized, i.e. interfirm relations, employment
structures, etc. (Scott 1997, pp. 327ff), or the consumer
culture and consumption side of the arts and
entertainment industries are put into focus. Hence, the
dichotomy of culture and economy is being reproduced.
Especially the cultural industries which products are
considered to be predominantly cultural in every way, are
often treated as just another sector of the economy.
Thus, vertical disintegration, flexible specialization
and somewhat diffuse synergy effects are often considered
to be the only and predominant economic rationale for the
immense concentration of cultural-economic activities in
metropolitan areas.
11In sum, I would like to argue that it is
within this third literature on the cultural economy of
cities that a major re-invention of the urban is in the
making. The discourse on what a metropolis and a city
mean today is based more and more on the fusion of
economic and cultural categories. Therefore, if we are to
understand the assets of the urban within the postmodern
economy of signs and aestheticized consumer idenities, it
would be useful to take a closer look at the workings of
cultural capital within the cultural economy. If the
infusion of the economy with cultural meaning is on the
rise, if product differentiation, and economic success
are ever more based on the cultural competence of
cultural services, then it should be the production of
cultural capital itself that ought to be scutinized. How
is cultural capital being produced and put to work? And
what are the relationships between the production of
cultural capital and an urban environment? Why is it that
the cultural industries are highly concentrated in
metropolitan regions and more specifically in the inner
city? What are the hybrid cultural/economic assets of
cities within the economy of signs?
3. The creative metropolis
3.1. Creative services in
downtown Vancouver
12Creative services2 are a
unique subdivision of producer services (Hutton, 1994, p.
2). Services like advertising, graphic design,
photographers, industrial design, etc. can be classified
and identified as creative services because they share
important respects in the production process. Their
products are predominantly images, styles, and signs.
Creative services operate at the heart of the symbolic
economy, therefore, cultural capital is central to their
success. As Clarke (1991, p. 68) put it their "focus
[is] on creativity (as the production of difference), and
the promotion of lifestyle as the purpose of
consumption". Their employees are not only exemplary
consumers, they also play a crucial role in the
construction and transmission of messages about the
meaning of consumption. People who are engaged in the
creative services are cultural mediators and do "the
work of symbolic manipulation" (Clarke, 1991, 67).
Creative services construct signifiers in an attempt to
produce the signified. Indeed, as cultural mediators they
try to predispose and define lifestyles and identities of
broad segements of the new middle class. This makes them
an interesting group to study for cultural geography per
se. Moreover, what makes them even more intriguing from
an urban geographic perspective is the fact that they are
highly concentrated downtown. In my research I
concentrate on the production of cultural capital in
selective creative service industries in Vancouver, i.e.
advertising agencies, graphic design, interior design and
apparel design. These design services are highly dynamic
and clearly concentrated downtown (fig. 1).
year creative services
|
1990 % downtown
|
1990 total
|
1980 total
|
1970 total
|
advertising
agencies |
68 |
171 |
110 |
46 |
apparel-designers |
57 |
28 |
17 |
23 |
graphic-designers |
56 |
228 |
54 |
0 |
interior-designers |
42 |
163 |
108 |
70 |
Fig. 1:
Growth and location of selective creative
services in the City of Vancouver 1970 -
1990
Source:
Yellow pages, various years
13The over-representation of creative services
in the central city is a fairly consistent spatial
pattern across Canada. In various years in the 1980s 71%
of the advertising agencies in Toronto were located in
the central city, in Montreal 90% and in Ottawa even 95%
(Gad, 1991, p. 448). The question that I would like to
ask, then, is why are specific creative services
concentrated downtown? What is the relationship between
the cultural production of images and the urban imaginary
of these image-producers? Why and how is an urban
environment an asset for the production of cultural
capital? And how is the urban, being urbane, perceived
and constructed by employers and employees in the
creative services? In order to address these questions
about 50 in-depth interviews with employers and employees
and a survey of the advertising, graphic design, interior
design and apparel design companies (total: 415 firms,
return rate: 47%) in Vancouver were conducted.3 Three
issues have shown to be significant in order to
understand the webs of connection between the urban
imaginary of the creative service people and their work
of cultural production: a) constructions of the self that
these people hold, b) the relationship between urban
identity and their creativity at work, and c) the
assessment of neighbourhoods and urban spaces.
3.2. Politics of identity:
creativity and vision
14Creative service people are many things.
There is as much that separates them as unites them.
However, from the in-depth interviews there appear to be
two distinct cultural practices that link their work and
subjectivities and are significant for their urban
imaginary: creativity and vision.
Creativity
15The notion of creativity holds a very
special meaning for people employed in the creative
services. Most of the interviewees do not only consider
her- or himself as just being creative. Moreover,
creativity appears to be one of the most important
identities these people hold about themselves. Creativity
is not considered simply a skill they bring to the
workplace but rather an all encompassing lifeforce on a
very intimate, deeply personal level. Being creative is
what they consider they stand in for and what makes for
much of their personality and individuality. Therefore,
almost all the interviewees claim to be creative in
everything they do be it professionally at work or in
their private lives. Thus, it seems to be plausible to
argue that it is mostly the discoursive site of
creativity where production and consumption issues are
mediated. It is the creativity that enables them to
detect the spirit of the time and transform it into
cultural messages about the meaning of consumption. The
invention of images, styles and design is born out of the
creative dealing with the social, cultural and economic
context. Hence, creativitiy and to be creative are
cultural and economic values at once. Creative service
firms produce cultural capital via the creativity of
their employees. Based on the sources of creativity
creative service people fuel their sense of subjectivity
and identity. They are entangled in an almost mythical
belief-system of creation. And more importantly, it is
the discourse of creativity that allows for a fluid sense
of the self that is based on a process of constant
re-invention of the self. The mythical and almost
dramatic function of creativity in the identity formation
process is expressed appropriately theatrical in the
following quote from an interview with an apparel
designer: If I ever lost my creative side I might
as well just die, cause that's what inspires me".
Vision/space
16Due to the highly visual component of their
work employers and employees in the creative services
have a hightened aesthetic reflexivity. Most of the
interviewees are visual producers and consumers. At work
an advertiser described himself as: "I am the
client's eye ... I bring a face to people's ideas".
More importantly, this visual and aesthetic attitude at
work shapes the ways the interviewees assess the spaces
that surround them, be it at home, in their
neighbourhoods, or around the city. The layout and design
of space matters a great deal to them because it is part
and parcel of their personal and professional vision.
Creative people are space people" who resent
to live or work just anywhere. Instead, creating a space
at home and at work that they feel comfortable with is
extremely important. Therefore, interior designing at
home, painting, etc. are wellspread private complements
to their creative worklife. In sum, it is through the
transformation of the material world, the creative and
visual process of putting into form, the design of
objects and signs that these people make a conncection
between the notion of a creative self and the materiality
of the world. Michel Maffesoli (1996) has long argued
that we are living in an age of tribalism"
where the aestheticization of the material world is
accompanied by a revival of archaic elements. Material
objects, spaces, and appearances, he argues, are treated
as totems and attached with meaning. While I would reject
the notion of the reenchantment of the world and even
more so the return of archaic elements or his
interpretation of an animated materiality, I would agree
that creative service employees are engaged in a new
discourse on the transcendental materiality of the
physical world. And it is not only through objects, the
design of consumer goods, ads or graphics where the new
discourse gets articulated. It is exactly at this point
of convergence between creativity and vision, where the
discoursive power of the urban as the central material
and imaginary site for the production of signs and images
comes in. It is especially in the realm of the urban,
where the intricate connectivity of identity politics,
material design and cultural production get played out.
3.3. Urban identity and
creativity
17Why does being in an urban environment
foster the creativitiy of highly visual and aesthetic
professionals? Most of the literature on cities and
innovativeness conceptualize the relationship between
urbanity and creativity in terms of an "urban
milieu" that creative people can thrive on (Zukin,
1989). The city is considered a somewhat diffuse, yet,
inspiring incubator or think tank for the production of
fresh ideas. The empirical findings of the Vancouver case
study supplement this rather airy and conventional
explanation in that they point in a different direction.
The main rationale why creative people opt for particular
neighbourhoods at the fringe of downtown is neither a
direct inspirational relationship between city life and
creativity, as one might assume. Interviewees seldomly
claim that streetlife, the urban landscape, or urban
encounters offer direct inspiration and guidance for the
creation of new images, styles, or design. Nor do
employees in the creative services necessarily feed their
creativity from accidential encounters in the streets. It
seems like the downtown economy of creative service
people seldomly operates like a think tank or incubator.
If the city is neither an inspiration nor a think tank,
what then is the meaning of a downtown location? From the
interviews two main interpretations become apparent: the
look and feel of the location in general and the
importance of particular spaces within the city.
Look and Feel
18The most dominant reason for choosing a
downtown location addresses something rather intangible
and inarticulate: for the interviewees being downtown in
a certain neighbourhood predomimantly "feels
good". The statement from an interview with a
graphic designer tries to articulate the importance of
the locational look and feel:
19"You know how you just kind
of get a sense of it? ... You know if you feel
good about where you are you're obviously going
to be more productive and happier and more
creative ... so the space feels good ... Why do
you feel really good when you live in a house
that overlooks the ocean? Because it feels
good."
20The enormous degree to which place gets
attached with feelings (the space feels good")
is clearly extraordinary. In order to understand the
importance of the look and feel of the
location it is important to remember the workings of
cultural capital. In the creative services, employers and
employees are dependend upon their creativitiy and visual
reflexivity. They are heavily inclined to be
extraordinarily sensitive towards the appearance and
character of the physical environment, and furthermore,
to choose those locations and spatial settings that will
foster, enhance, and unleash their creativity. Thus, it
seems reasonable to argue that the creative service
firms dependence upon the look and feel
of the location is inextricably linked with the notions
of creativity and vision discussed above and, thus, the
preconditions of a culturally driven production process.
Apparently, the personal convictions these people hold
about creativity and the importance of vision
significantly affect the ways they perceive the spaces
that surround them. For their clients many interviewees
claim it is the same. Especially advertising agencies are
extremely sensitive to their clients perceptions
and expectations about what an advertising agency should
look and feel like. Thus, the location of an
ad agency is an integral part of the corporate identity.
Creative firms try to make a statement with where they
are located. Space reflects and reinforces the image of
the companies, and thus, particular spaces and
neighbourhoods become an important factor for the success
of the business.
21"I don't really
think it's inspiring, just that it's a nice
feeling walking around ... There's an emotional
component, you see. I mean, when you walk into
this place, or you walk down the hall ... right
away it goes through your head 'Neat Place'. It
has to!' (advertising: creative director)
22While it is generally argued that in the
postmodern age of the commodity objects have been emptied
out of meaning, in contrast, the broken chain of the
signifier and signified seems not to be part of the
everyday experience of graphic designers, advertisers,
apparel designers, or interior designers - who are as
cultural meditators at least in part to be held
responsible for the postmodern inflation and deflation of
meaning. Although theoretists like Baudrillard (1994) or
Lash and Urry (1994, 14f) claim that postmodern
'sign-value' -- compared to traditional use value or
exchange value -- is ever more abstract, the interviewees
have the most concrete, direct and spontaneous relation
to the material world of offices or the urban
environment. The urban is approached from a strictly
aesthetic perspective, that is an aesthetic which is
closely intertwined with affective notions, indeed,
emotions of well-being and the perpetual construction of
the self. The urban identity these people hold consists
of a quintessentially aesthetic-affective complex.
Spaces inbetween
23Which spaces in the city do creative
services companies prefer? And why? Although urban
environments are generally assessed by the look and feel
of it, creative services are clearly attracted by very
specific sets of urban environments. It appears like
creative services thrive on the dynamic energy of the
neighbourhoods they are located in. The interviewees find
it stimulating (not inspiring!) to be in a particular
urban environment, that provides for a general level of
energy, a pulse, as well as visual and social
stimulation. Creative service employers and employees are
intrigued by those neighbourhoods who feel
good" because they feel they can charge their
creative batteries. In Vancouver, one particular place
downtown that serves these needs is Yaletown. Yaletown is
a young, dynamic design district with a small but rather
dense community of artistic people. It is a very bounded,
finite area in downtown Vancouver in as it consists of
four blocks of distinct warehouse architecture. The open
architecture with bricks, high ceilings, etc. allows for
loft living and, thus, makes it a very special place in
downtown Vancouver. In the early to mid 1990s it has been
this very distinctiveness of the architecture which
attracted many businesses to Yaletown and start the
process of economic and social upgrading. The cultural
mix of activities and the landscape features of Yaletown,
which has turned incredibly fast into a gentrified
shopping district, is described in the interviews in
terms of "funky, groovy, a sense of fun, colour,
energy". The cultural characteristics of the
neighbourhood put the employees in the right mindset to
perform their creative work. Thus, creative services are
at the forefront of the gentrification process and often
pioneering new urban areas for social upgrading. Their
societal role as cultural mediators for broader segments
of the new middle class is mirrored and mediated in their
spatial practices. The neighbourhood reinforces the
creativity and the concentration of creative services
reinforces the dynamic and stimulating character of the
neighbourhood. Society and space form a conspirancy where
one is constructed through the other. Because their
creativity is so much geared towards shaping the material
world, the ability to be creative is also very much
dependent upon a material environment and particular
notions of the urban, that provide for a context in which
they can unleash their creativity.
24Surprisingly, although Yaletown is located
downtown, the interviewees construct the identity of the
neighbourhood as something different. Yaletown is
perceived of as being neither downtown nor suburban. It
is a space inbetween. Being on the edge of downtown
people perceive of the corporate culture downtown as the
other, the constitutive outside of their own
identity. By associating downtown with ties, highrises,
anonymity, fear, and alienation, Yaletown is
discoursively distinguishable as a creative community
with feelings of belonging and ownership, i.e. an almost
countercultural site. This urban imagination of Yaletown
as a very special place beyond downtown and suburbia is
accompanied by a particular, indeed very selective
perception of Vancouvers urban landscape. The
visual focus of their work clearly shows in their urban
imagination. Vancouver is perceived through the lens of
very specific sites. Favourite places in the city are
situated along the picturesque scenery of the waterfront
and mountains (Granville Island, Stanley Park, Venier
Park, Seewall). The metaphor that people in the creative
services most often refer to is strictly visual. As an
interior designer put it: "I always think of it as
jewel-like, and that's more a visual metaphor than
anything, because of the crispness of the colours, and
its overall cleanliness. I think it has a sparkle.
There's a lot of reflection ... so I think of it as a
jewel". Vancouver is considered to be a jewel
because of its shiny, rather polished aesthetic
qualities. The urban imaginary, the spaces employers and
employees in the creative services prefer and materially
shape are directly linked to the aesthetic production
they perform at work. People in the creative services not
only look for creative spaces within the urban
environment. It is partially through this aesthetic lens
that they asses the whole of urban environments. A final
quote from an interview with a graphic designer gives the
most plastic account:
25".. when I go back to
Toronto, I feel visually deprived. You know,
being in a creative business, visual stimulation
is very important, and you take that away ... I
was so depressed last time I was in Toronto,
really, I came home early"
4. Discussion
26Robert Park (1984, p. 1) said the "city
is a state of mind". What a city means clearly
depends upon the social, cultural, and economic context.
In the postmodern age a new cultural economy of urban
spaces is in the state of nascence. With the rise of
consumer society and the economy of signs, a new physical
and symbolic gestalt of the metropolis is striving for
hegemony in the societal urban imaginations and spatial
practices. Authors like Saskia Sassen (1996) have argued
for the dual character of contemporary metropolitan
regions, a tendency towards the simultaneous development
of a metropolis of both, capital and culture. Alan Scott
(1997) tries to conceptualize the merging of culture and
capital in terms of the cultural economy. But in my
opinion these notions still bear tremendous shortcomings.
I would assume that we have yet to develop a new
vocabulary and a new language, that does not perpetuate
the dichotomy of culture and capital. Therefore, in order
to grasp the role of cities in the postmodern economy of
signs I find the nexus of urbanity and creativity to be a
helpful starting point. Because urbanity and creativity
can be looked at from both sides: as assets of cultural
production and means of constructing subject identities.
And in their mutual constructedness new modes of
production and consumption shine through in what
Maffesoli (1996, p. 4) might call a style of an
epoch". To spir some further debate and open up
spaces for imaginative thinking on the future of cities I
would suggest that the nexus of urbanity-creativity has
become a strategic discoursive site that mediates between
cultural and capital in the city. Thus in an era where
the myth of creativity dominates production and
consumption, the creative metropolis emerges.
27The rise of the creative metropolis is
inextricably linked with the emergence of a creative
service economy. Creative services capitalize culture and
culturize capital. In doing so, they are strategically
situated between production and consumption. The visual
orientation inclines employers and employees in the
creative services to consider the physical environment as
nothing less than fundamental for their personal and
professional well-being. Advertisers, graphic designers,
and interior decorators want a lot from space and they
try to build a space around them that facilitates their
creativity. In order to attach the material world of
consumer goods with aesthetic values and meaning, they
thrive on very specific notions of urbanity, embodied
with emotions and aesthetics. Moreover, these urban
imaginations and material spaces provide for a language
and an arena which enables creative people to produce
cultural capital and attach meaning to their lives. Thus,
urbanity and creativity form two sides of a coin and the
links between them are rather emotional and affective
than tangible or articulate. In much the same way that
designers or advertisers claim that they just recognize a
good advertisement or an excellent design when they see
it, they approach and engage with the city as something
to be perceived of in strictly emotional and aesthetic
categories, i.e. the of look and feel of it.
And it is through the usage and perception of very
specific sites in the city that they suit their needs.
And in the end, particular urban places of the creative
city get overrepresented and overgeneralized as the
city".
28What are we to make of this new city? How do
we interprete, evaluate and even deal with the rise of
the new urbanity-creativity-nexus as a way of
constructing identities, a social value, an economic
asset and the emergence of new spaces, symbols and
services of the creative metropolis, that come along with
it? From what I can understand so far, there seems to be
a positive and negative side to it. The problematic
aspects of the creative city are to be found in its
highly elitist, exclusionary, unpolitical, and
self-indulgent material and symbolic realities. The
urbanism of the creative metropolis is based on the
formative powers of the affluent consumer. Therefore, the
creative metropolis serves the needs of the new middle
class who has the power to define a new form of urbanity
that serves their needs for constructing an identity
through the means of consumption. In terms of social
justice the creative city" is, thus, clearly
an exclusionary notion that, furthermore, embodies a many
dangers of a reductionist, fetishist consumerism.
29Yet, at the same time the identity politics
of the myth of creativity and the creative metropolis
behold some positive aspects. Creativity and the creative
metropolis might provide for an answer to a question that
has deeply troubled modern societies from the very
beginning. More than fifty years ago, in 1941, Erich
Fromm (1990) wrote a book on the Escape from
Freedom". Being fundamentally shocked and frustrated
with the devastating politics of Hitler-fascism in
Germany, he developed an argument, that should help
understand and maybe even prevent or stop the fatal
consequences of totalitarianism. Later on his thesis
reappeared in various forms in the literature on
postmodernity (Betz, 1992). Released from the iron cage
of meta narratives the individual in the postmodern age
enters a new stage of individual freedom. This freedom is
accompanied by the luxury and burden of making her or his
own choices, to follow ones own personal rules and
ethics. But it seems like ever since the disenchantment
of the world, the tumbling of religion and science as
bedrocks of society there has been disorientation and
insecurity, fear and escapism. I would like to argue that
the rise of the discourse of creativity is yet another
new way of trying to find an answer to the question
freedom what for? The contemporary notion of
creativity is based upon and strives for a process of
permanent reinvention of the self through the projection
of the self onto the material world. Instead of fixing
identities and finding finite answers, all there is
(left) is a desire to produce -- subjectivities, the
self, and most importantly meaning. Hence, creativity is
about processes and not results, it is about emotions,
about feeling comfortable and constantly re-inventing the
self. And it appears to be the city which offers the
sites and the sights in order to produce this ongoing
cultural/economic production. It is in this context of
postmdodern identity politics of individualized subject
positions that the downtown/creative city/suburban-
distinction has become a powerful signifier. The private
and professional concepts of the city people in the
creative services hold are therefore not merely
descriptive. Indeed, they are expressive and refer to
much broader, fundamentally humane issues and concerns.
Because, to give meaning to the city is not only a way of
establishing one's own identity, it is even more so a way
of making sense of the world. What place signifies is
important.
30Whether you or I agree with the notion of
creativity and the creative metropolis as a solution to
the problem, an answer to the escape from freedom,
depends solely upon yourself and myself. Because, the
city will alway become, what we want it to be. In the
words of Jonathan Raban (1994, p. 1): Decide who
you are, and the city will again assume a fixed form
round you". So, do you want to be creative - for
economic and cultural reasons? Then what you get is a
creative metropolis with its very own services, symbols,
and spaces.
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Notes
1 This paper was presented at the
Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Kanada-Studien,
Grainau 1998.
2 Since the
geographical inquiry of the tertiary sector has only
recently turned its attention towards the symbolic
economy of signs a proper terminology and
coneptualization of this new field of study has yet to be
developed. Therefore, the term creative
services" is only a provisionally one that tries to
identify and cluster those producer services which are
design-oriented and geared towards the production of
images, styles, and identities (Hutton, 1994, pp. 1ff).
3 I am very
grateful to Anne-Marie Bouthillette, Hayley S. Britton,
and Andrew Hamilton for their extraordinary skillful
research assistance.
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