A CRISIS IN URBAN CREATIVITY?
REFLECTIONS ON THE CULTURAL IMPACTS OF GLOBALISATION, AND ON THE POTENTIAL OF URBAN CULTURAL POLICIES BY DR. FRANCO BIANCHINI


Paper presented at the international symposium The Age of the City: the Challenges for Creative Cites, Osaka, February 7th-10th 2004

The work in progress presented at this symposium considers some aspects of the cultural impacts of globalisation (1) on contemporary Western European cities, and some of their implications for urban creativity. It concentrates on trends which have the potential of undermining the conditions for urban creativity. These include the following: the dispersal of urban functions and the problem of the ‘hypertrophic’ city; the emergence of ‘non-places’ and of the ‘experience economy’; the reduction in leisure time for people in work; the consequences of ’information overload’ and of the ’audit explosion’, particularly for public sector organisations. The paper then considers the creative potential of a further trend: the increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural composition of cities in the UK and other European countries. The concluding sections of the paper discuss aspects of the potential of urban cultural policies in counteracting an emerging crisis in urban creativity and innovation.

by Dr Franco Bianchini
International Cultural Planning and Policy Unit
De Montfort University
The Gateway
LEICESTER LE1 9BH
ENGLAND
Tel. +44 116 2577391
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Modified on Saturday 10 September 2005