CREATIVE CITY NEWSLETTER: APRIL 2002

WHITE OAK REPORT

ISSUE IN FOCUS: Marketing and Branding
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Community Development
CREATIVE CORNER: Car Sharing
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT: Shelby County and Memphis, TN
CULTURE BUILDS COMMUNITIES: NRC Training
CULTURE BUILDS COMMUNITIES: Creative Cities In the News
White Oak Report


:White Oak Report Contents:
Background on Richard Florida
Summary of Remarks by Florida
White Oak Dialogue
Pictures from the conference

This is the main text of the White Oak Report. For a complete copy, including appendices, please contact Beth Belk.

White Oak Dialogue

White Oak participants agreed that Richard Florida's work was a good framework for further discussion, but that it was limited by its economic approach. The group therefore moved forward with a discussion on how our Creative City efforts could incorporate these important findings into a broader agenda. Throughout the next two days, we discussed the important issues that also must be addressed within the context of this framework, and at the end of our discussions a list of seven essential topics was generated. We will use this list as the basis and outline for our report on the White Oak forum:

1. A New Leadership Paradigm based on Community Participation at the "Grassroots" level
2. Lifelong Education
3. Equity (Culture Builds Community)
4. Place-Making and Design of Public Spaces
5. Public Wellness - Healthy Communities
6. Regional Cooperation and Leadership
7. Image and Marketing

1. A New Leadership Paradigm - Community Participation

A number of our Creative City participants felt that to fully apply a creativity agenda, we must rethink our paradigms for local leadership. A 21st Century public/private partnership approach is necessary, instead of the more typical and frequently used top-down strategies of the 20th Century. Positive and effective "town-gown" collaborations should become the norm. (A far broader degree of involvement and engagement from higher education - our universities, community colleges, vocational schools, etc.) It will also be important for the faith community to step forward and to become a full partner. For success, the business community must stop translating the bottom line into their community involvement decisions and join a long-term investment program with communities. Community participation at the grassroots level is essential. Citizens need to take a proactive role in solving problems instead of being obsessed with opposition to leadership. Government needs to listen, encourage participation, to be entrepreneurial, and to restructure the way in which it can cross boundaries. Finally, philanthropy is a major resource, and local philanthropy, particularly with the rise of the regional grant makers, will be a great support for consolidated thinking, action and resource partnerships.

A critical component of our discussion on leadership paradigms was the ongoing need for bottom-up citizen participation that can sustain itself. Citizen participation can often exhaust itself, and acts mostly in opposition to leadership. Grassroots, neighborhood-based citizen participation as part of the process was deemed essential to break down the barriers between the creative class and the existing neighborhood residents in communities.

2. Lifelong Education

Our public education system does not produce enough members prepared to enter the creative class. Much of the "membership" of this new creative class is made up of immigrants from abroad. It is both a blessing of America that we can attract the best and brightest of the world and also a "brain drain" from the rest of the world, leaving many women and men seeking to live in American communities. We must do more for our citizens by rethinking our educational system(s), by being open to innovation, and by challenging existing budget and staffing allocations to create a radical revolution in public education. This is the only way we can educate our own creative citizens.

3. Equity (CBC)

The "creative class," to use Richard's words, "must have no barriers to entry." There must be concerted, consistent, and long-term efforts to allow existing populations (particularly existing populations in our inner city that do not have the bootstrap and the head start) to move into the creative class. Only through equitable access to education, mentoring, job counseling, support, micro-lending, and neighborhood enterprise citizens can begin to move into the creative class.

Partners particularly believes our Culture Builds Community agenda, using culture as a social and human development resource, can be a material advantage in putting quality of life resources to work. These resources support our resident populations, enabling them to gain skills, aspirations, and the necessary training/discipline to enter the creative class within their community. Only then can everyone benefit from the economic and social advantages blossoming in the New Economy.

4. Place-Making and Design of Public Spaces

The whole look, feel and physical design of our communities are important, requiring a particular attention to place-making. To create value, whether it is in squares, plazas, public gathering places, city halls, and/or libraries we need significant attention, not solely of the architect but also of the client - the citizen. A whole new way of place-making that involves the client/user as part of the design and programming team would produce far more livable and even lovable gathering places in our communities as a major infrastructure and backdrop for the creative city and our related agendas. It will help us to explore older place-making models that have worked, and to use the extensive existing intellectual capital that is often ignored in the new economy.

From R. Florida's intro:

Place is fundamentally more important to economic development, etc. than anything else.

• People want challenges and ability to move around - they'll seek out attractive locales.
• People work alone more and more - they need places to communicate and recreate.
• People want authentic places - our current places are often much too generic.

5. Public Wellness - Healthy Communities

The importance of "aging in place" for our senior citizens and supporting all our community members as they seek to live independently; exercise, reduce obesity, and achieve overall wellness is also an essential component of the Creative City agenda. We must address these issues as well as the debilitating effects of public health issues upon low-income people in our communities. This critical element of our agenda must be addressed if we are to allow our existing communities to join the creative class. Public wellness must be a component of creating caring, competitive, and thriving healthy communities.

6. Regional Cooperation

Regional cooperation is a requirement for a successful creative city. There must be a "crossing of the line" - jurisdictions working together (city/county/township) and crossing political boundaries to establish leadership and financing for the infrastructure of the creative city. Together we need to foster smart growth, develop environmental protection mechanisms, control unregulated sprawl and prevent pollution if we are to enhance the quality of life for all of our creative cities. Creative cities must be a part of and central to a larger metropolitan region. Creative people choose to live in communities that are strong and vibrant, and that address and remedy the issues just mentioned. These communities must be large enough to provide a market for diverse, creative living, working and entertainment opportunities. Only regional configurations can reach these ultimate goals for a "Creative City".

7. Image and Marketing

The image of our communities, as well as the marketing of that image is essential in successful Creative City endeavors. Creating a "brand" for a city is important not only to outsiders but to its current residents as it promotes pride, value, satisfaction, and expressions of anticipation of things to come. Branding and image is not a public relations agenda, it is a civic agenda. Our participants agreed that the image and related marketing must grow from a legitimate value, aspiration, or goal held by community members, and that citizens must be involved in the process of creating and maintaining the image.

Conclusion

Based on the conclusions made at the White Oak forum and presented in this report, Partners will develop the public policy framework for the Creative City program. Through the shared expertise of Richard Florida, his colleagues, and the members of our Creative City teams serving as knowledge resources, and based on past and current Partners Creative City work, we will explore a civic agenda in which creativity does not create a bifurcated society of "have and have nots", but a welcome mat that goes out to newcomers and long-term residents. The concluding goal of the forum and thus of our Creative City agenda, is to develop and promote creative communities that allow for an equitable opportunity for the good life across America and all their citizens in the New Economy.