Creative Cities in Italy: new scenarios and projects

Abstract

Reflections on and experimentation with urban creativity as a competitive factor put together in recent years, starting with the works of Florida and Landry, gave rise to further theoretical/operative reflections aimed at providing a greater territorial dimension to the creative city, lessening the rhetorical character and increasing that of the concrete effects on the quality of life. In 2007 my book “Creative City: Dynamics, Innovations, Actions” identified the need for concrete evolution and pointed out the factors that make it possible for urban creativity to become a launch pad for new economies and a creative force for new cities and not simply an attractive force for intellectual resources. Today the paradigm of the creative city calls for a further evolutive leap forward – the third – because it is capable of producing multiplication and regeneration effects on urban development. In the current crisis situation, with the world’s GDPs dropping, the strong flows of financial, social, and relational capital that powered urban redevelopment over the last fifteen years are no longer available to be tapped in on in an indiscriminate manner as it seems was the case until just a few months ago. The most dynamic cities in the near future will no longer be those that are able to attract urban projects driven by the real estate market, but the cities that have extensive cultural and identifying resources and that are able to use them as the basis for creating new culture and new urban value. Revitalising cities is no longer easy opportunity for long-term investments or for using the financial capital gains of multinationals or sovereign funds, but the new creative city has to provide precious opportunities for real development – not only quantitative but more and more qualitative – that is able to produce effects in both the domain of collective assets and that of private capital.