Culture is future » Territorial attractiveness and social cohesion

DEBATES 2011 - Investing in Culture - Charles Landry, the art of city making

"City-making is an art, not a formula."

For the 2011 edition of the Forum d’Avignon, Charles Landry will present elements of a study realized for the  think tank of the Forum d’Avignon about the role of creativity and culture in cities.

Charles Landry helps cities revive themselves economically, and socially with a particular focus on culture. Sir Peter Hall, Bartlett Professor of Planning, University College London noted « he demonstrates how new modes of thinking can help regenerate cities facing a challenge of survival” ». After the success of his book The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators (2000), Charles Landry published The Art of City Making (2006)."Creative City" has become a way of thinking regarding the development of cities, emphasizing the contribution of culture and creative industries in urban reconstruction and regeneration.  He tries to identify the best resources of cities to exploit their potential, to make them more attractive and vibrant within a long term perspective, an approach  far wider than architecture or engineering. Creativity is a general, all-purpose problem-solving and opportunity-creating capacity. Its essence is a multifaceted resourcefulness and the ability to assess and find one’s way to solutions for intractable, unexpected, unusual problems or circumstances.  In The art of city making, he underlines that creativity needs to be linked to an ethical foundation and value base, to be creative "for the world". According to him , the city should be a place of solidarity, where the relationships between individuals, groups, and their environment are such that the city  gives something back both to their community and the wider world. Creativity helps cities be distinctive. With international case studies, he explains how the potential of cities should be assessed so that they can strengthen their identity as well as adapt themselves to transformational change.  

To go further

 website of Charles Landry

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