This from an old (2001) Smart City radio interview with Charles Landry, author of The Creative City, who articulates his thoughts on why some cities are more successful than other. Amen, brother.
“Well, I think in the end it boils down to the organizational culture of the city and that all sounds a bit vague, I know, but what it really means is that the decision makers allow the individuals in that city, wherever they come from, whatever subject area they work in, to sort of express their possibilities and do things and enable them to express their creativity in one way or another.”
“I think in the end a lot of it is really what I would call “soft ware” solutions and what that means is that those cities usually have sort of wide-spread leadership; they’ve in a sense empowered people from the public/private community sectors to really work at their best.”
“Another thing I think you see in those cities is they seem to have a sort of clarity of purpose, you know, a sort of long term idea of where they’re going and they understand the deeper trends going on in society. And particularly, I think, they seem to be able to mix sort of social and economic objectives simultaneously, sort of more or less at the same time.”
“And I suppose importantly, also, they understand that the resources of a city are often quite invisible, i.e. people’s confidence, a sense of motivation. So they’re able to somehow, the leaders, the leaderships, to somehow inspire their citizens to do things they thought they might never have been able to do before.”
“Well, I think in the end it boils down to the organizational culture of the city and that all sounds a bit vague, I know, but what it really means is that the decision makers allow the individuals in that city, wherever they come from, whatever subject area they work in, to sort of express their possibilities and do things and enable them to express their creativity in one way or another.”
“I think in the end a lot of it is really what I would call “soft ware” solutions and what that means is that those cities usually have sort of wide-spread leadership; they’ve in a sense empowered people from the public/private community sectors to really work at their best.”
“Another thing I think you see in those cities is they seem to have a sort of clarity of purpose, you know, a sort of long term idea of where they’re going and they understand the deeper trends going on in society. And particularly, I think, they seem to be able to mix sort of social and economic objectives simultaneously, sort of more or less at the same time.”
“And I suppose importantly, also, they understand that the resources of a city are often quite invisible, i.e. people’s confidence, a sense of motivation. So they’re able to somehow, the leaders, the leaderships, to somehow inspire their citizens to do things they thought they might never have been able to do before.”
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