speakers

Lia Ghilardi

Lia Ghilardi is the Director of Noema Research and Planning, an international consultancy specializing in place mapping and strategic cultural planning. Lia"s background is in urban sociology (Trento University, Italy), she has an MA in Arts Criticism from City University (London) and a Diploma in Creative Thinking Skills from the De Bono Programme (Malta). She is Leader of the Policy Making Module at City University, London, Department of Arts Policy and Management. Her organization Noema Research and Planning Ltd offers a unique and innovative approach to place shaping and regeneration based on the concept of Cultural Planning.

In 1900 only one tenth of the world's population lived in cities. Today, for the first time in history, half of the population lives in cities and in twenty years' time this number may rise to as much as three quarters. The urban population is increasing at a rate of a quarter of a million people per day - roughly the equivalent of a new London every month. Allied to such trends are the changes in the local economies of cities. In particular, over the past twenty years, the disappearance of local manufacturing industries and periodic crises in government and finance, have made creativity and the broader creative economy the business of cities and the basis of their tourist attractions and their unique, competitive edge. In this scenario, notions such as the creative city are increasingly used to define new modes of production, consumption and governance within a new "economic regime'. However, there is increasing uneasiness among policy makers and civic leaders, in particular among those from small and medium size cities - which traditionally had not had the benefit of the bigger cities' "cultural inertia' - to seriously tackle urban dereliction and the economic downturn. This presentation will deal first with the notions of why and how, historically, some cities have been more creative than others. The presentation will then feature a discussion of some alternative strategies and methods required in order to build the preconditions for a city to be creative and sustainable today.

Link:

www.noema.org.uk