THE CREATIVE FIELD OF CITIES

(in cognitive-cultural capitalism)

Allen J. Scott,

University of California,

Los Angeles

STRUCTURES OF PRODUCTION AND URBAN FORMS

• 1. The factory system: The classical manufacturing town.

• 2. Fordist mass production: The great industrial metropolis.

• 3. Post-fordism, new economy, cognitive capitalism, cognitive-cultural economy: The “creative” city.

THE COGNITIVE-CULTURAL ECONOMY

NEW DIVISION OF LABOR [Levy and Murnane (2004)]

Deroutinization of labor processes.

• 1. Digital technologies• 2. High levels of scientific/technical labor• 3. Human intermediation of services• 4. Symbolic outputs• 5. Aestheticization of commodities• 6. (Ernst) Engel’s law

Specific forms of cognitive-cultural production and work:

• Scientific and technological research• Neoliberal technomanagement• Innovation-oriented production (plus integration

of conception and execution)• Sorting and diffusion of information• Personal services • Commodification of experiences • Etc., etc.

BUT ALSO:

• Deroutinized low-wage work:• Small-batch assembly• Flexible machine operation (e.g. sewing

machine, vehicle, word processing)• Security and maintenance• Hotel and restaurant trades• Janitorial work• Childcare

• Widening divide

Some attempts to map out social stratification in the new economy

• Bell: Post-industrial society

• Gouldner: The new class

• Reich: Symbolic workers in the information economy

• Sklair: Transnational capitalist class

• Castells: Network society

• Florida: The creative class

Some theorizations of the cognitive-cultural order

• Managerial discourse: flexibility, fast capitalism, human capital, empathy, creativity, adaptability, etc.

• Urban policy discourse: consumer city (Glaeser), entertainment machine (Clark), creative city (Florida, Landry).

TOWARD -- AND BEYOND – THE

CREATIVE CITY

Driving forces of urban growth in the era of the cognitive-cultural economy

1. Networks of specialized but complementary producers

2. Local labor markets: skills, socialization

3. The creative field: learning and innovation, i.e. creativity is always mobilized in concrete ways (textiles industry, car industry, film industry)

4. Regional institutions and social infrastructures of the creative economy [from protection of intellectual property rights (e.g. aoc) to social networking]

Regional convergence is a locational strategy by means of which producers and workers transform

latent benefits into concrete competitive advantages

• Increasing returns to scale• Agglomeration economies• Monopoly powers of place (product

differentiation and branding; Chamberlinian competition)

A new balance between work, life, and leisure in the city

1. Interpenetration of upgraded production space and gentrified social space

2. Proliferation of cultural/entertainment facilities (Clark: “Entertainment machine”)

3. City of the spectacle4. Iconic architecture and recycling of the

built environment: Bilbao Guggenheim, Westergasfabriek, Petronas Towers, London Docklands.

The Florida formula for achieving the creative city

Attract the creative class by:

Investing in amenitiesEncouraging tolerance, openness and diversity

Warm winters are allegedly an added attraction

• However, we must also take the following points into consideration:

• Highly qualified workers seek relevant forms of work (mobile but not footloose)

• The complex production machinery of the city

• The spiral of cumulative of causation in city growth

The diachronic dimension: Silicon Valley

• 1. 1950s: Fruit growing

• 2. Initial planting of high-technology seed.

• 3. Disintegration, spin off.

• 4. In-migration of semiconductor engineers

(NOT undifferentiated creative class)

• 5. Growth of market and defense spending

• 6. Cumulative causation

The synchronic dimension: Hollywood

… the furniture industry

… the recorded music industry

REPRISE: THE POLICY PROBLEM

1. Bottom up

2. Harvest external economies (networks, labor markets, innovation)

3. Institution-building in the interests of regional coordination: internalizing externalities.

4. Sustain overall milieu, i.e. creative field.

The Global Dimension

The dark side of the dialectic:

• Sweatshops

• Underclass

• Immigrant, often undocumented, labor

• Social segmentation

• Widening divide

• The decline of community

• The withdrawal of public services

• The retreat of the public sphere

Beyond the creative city and the creative class: tasks ahead

• From the neoliberal city to the social democratic city:

• i.e. Prosperity and growth, PLUS citizenship, solidarity, sociability, political community

• From the “creative city” of possessive individualism, sharp inequalities, and consumer capitalism toward the convivial city