The case for the iCreate Creative City Initiative

Last week at our Annual General Meeting of our shareholders for iCreate, I unveiled a few initiatives to diversify the company, build resilience coming out of the pandemic and further strengthen iCreate’s mission of building our Digital and Creative Economy. In this article, which most of the content is taken from Economic Forum Whitepaper = Factors for Enabling the Creative Economy, I will highlight the need for building infrastructure in the creative economy and the need for the iCreate Creative City in the Caribbean.

No single determining force drives success in the creative economy, but commonalities exist in many creative hubs. In studying the creative economy, the Global Agenda Council on the Creative Economy has identified five simple factors that policy-makers should take into account when aiming – to stimulate creative economies in their countries. They can be considered a framework for maximizing the contribution of the creative economy to wider economic growth and development:

For this purpose, I will focus on THE POWER OF PLACE.

The power of place: Creative economies are in places where people want to live / work due to location and amenities – and the most successful have established themselves as international hubs.

Successful creative hubs are connected internationally, attracting people from other cities and countries because their sense of excitement and intrigue combine harmoniously with their liveability or affordability. In most cases, they are the peculiar result of historical or geographical characteristics that are difficult to replicate – such as London’s straddling of time zones or San Francisco’s pleasant climate – but create the conditions for creative economies to thrive.

Some of these advantages can be built. Access to infrastructure, physical or digital, and strong governance structures are all important features. Many creative economies have pockets of affordable working and living space with room for expansion, which is frequently where the creative classes take root. Increasingly, the creative economy is found in urban centres, even more so as cities gradually power up a country’s growth engine. In the United States, creative economies are manifesting themselves in “denser, more talent-driven, more diverse and innovative metros”, rather than more isolated, suburban areas. 

Put simply, creative economies are places where people want to live because they are well located, have diverse communities and good local amenities – even the weather or quality of restaurants can make a difference. Once a creative hub has begun to build a critical mass, it becomes more attractive to similar companies. A study in Portugal shows that creative firms “tend to locate where other creative and knowledge-based activities are clustered in order to benefit from local input sharing, interdependencies and local networking”.

CASE STUDY - UNITED KINGDOM 

At over 8.5 million people, London is the largest city in the EU, with more than twice the population of Berlin and more than three times that of Paris. It is still expanding rapidly, with the population expected to reach 10 million by 2030. It is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, with more than 300 languages spoken, and it has high levels of immigration, with many skilled citizens attracted by employment and education opportunities. London’s dominance of the UK economy has grown at the same time as its prominence as a hub for creative industries has flourished.

London built a base in the creative industries, particularly in publishing, broadcasting and advertising, in the post- war years. But the sector was regarded as less important to the capital than financial and business services until the mid-1990s, when the first dotcom boom coincided with a resurgence in British music and fashion – a period dubbed “Cool Britannia”. At the same time, London became a more international capital, and the industries grew strongly – adding 110,000 jobs between 1995 and 2000. Despite a slump at the turn of the century, the shift in the city’s economy away from financial services and towards technology and media was accentuated by the 2007-08 financial crisis.

As a result, the city has an unusual depth of creative industries and skilled workers. It is this, rather than strength in a single sector, that singles it out from other hubs. This makes it highly attractive as a place to live and work for different artists and specialists, and provides opportunities for start-ups in a range of sectors. The largest industry sectors in terms of jobs are now advertising (86,000), music and performing arts (83,400), publishing (86,800), radio and television (66,400), and software (169,500). More recently, London has become a hub for technology start-ups, with 23,700 software companies and a strong venture capital base.

In the past 20 years, most of the fastest growing sectors have been the creative industries: advertising and marketing; architecture; crafts; fashion and design; film, TV, video, radio and photography; technology; museums, galleries and libraries; and music, and the performing and visual arts. Some 697,000 people – one in six jobs in London – are employed in creative industries, with an output of ￡21 billion ($31 billion). According to recent data, the growth (gross value added) of the sector in 2012 was 9.4% – nearly six times faster than the rest of the economy. As these industries have expanded, they have shifted the axis of the city to the east – partly driven by lower rents – reviving formerly rundown districts such as Hoxton, Shoreditch and Dalston. The unveiling in 2011 of Tech City, a government- backed initiative to promote tech start-ups, helped to give the area a reputation for entrepreneurship that crosses industry boundaries.

In Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean, we are lagging behind as it relates to infrastructure that will power the growth of our Creative Economy. Students can only learn via strong campuses (whether physical or virtual) that can empower them to take advantage of a globalized world filled with competitiveness. Initiatives such as large music festivals, hosting international musicians, film production and so on are impossible to happen without solid infrastructure in the region. A key element of any advanced creative economy is infrastructure and I look forward to build out of the iCreate Creative City Initiative. Jamaica Observer and Loop Jamaica articles on the iCreate Creative City.