WORKSHOP 9: Assessments of Creative Regions
Friday 8 June at 9.00-11.00
Chair: Juha Kaskinen
Culture in
the Estimation of Latvian Local Governments
Edvins Vanags, Ilmars Vanags & Olgerts Krastins (Latvian
Statistical Institute, Latvia)
The aim of this paper is to investigate the present situation of culture in Latvia, to determine and analyse the past and future tendencies in the development of culture. The following methods of investigation have been used: a monographic study, a survey, interviews and statistical analysis. The main data source of research is the results of the annual local governments’ self-evaluation survey conducted by the Latvian Statistical Institute (LSI). Among other fields of activities an important role in the survey is devoted to culture that was investigated rather profoundly in the process of analysing the results of the first survey.
The second self-evaluation survey is already under way right now. Culture has an even more significant place in this survey. There is a special chapter in the questionnaire containing questions which are connected with culture both in a broad and narrow meaning, including political culture, administrative culture, media culture, social culture, environmental culture, corporate culture, etc. The leaders of local governments give answers on the present level of different kinds of culture in municipalities and on the tendency of change in the nearest two years. The 38 qualitative indicators characterising the situation and tendencies in regard of culture in Latvia as well as in each region can be obtained without additional grouping of results of the survey (the total number of indicators in questionnaire - 110). The traditional quantitative statistics are also used in the analysis.
A new research programme is being prepared at present. Respondents in this programme will not be the leaders of local governments but heads of the cultural departments of municipalities. This programme will deal with more specific questions in the sphere of culture. The LSI has also envisaged a population survey in which the attitude of the inhabitants to local government activities will be observed, laying a special emphasis on the area of culture.
Where Art Thou? Regional Distribution of
Culture Workers in Finland
Riikka Penttinen (School of Business and
Economics, University of Jyväskylä, Finland)
This study seeks to shed light on the regional distribution of culture workers in Finland. What factors – if any - make the location decisions of culture workers different from that of others? This study uses a rich micro level data for an application of multinomial logit model. The estimation results show that being a culture worker is an important factor in locational choice: the coefficient of living in a metropolitan area compared to rural areas is highly positive. According to the estimated marginal effects, the likelihood of living in a metropolitan region increases substantially if the person is a culture worker. Another interesting notion is that the residential choices of cultural entrepreneurs seem to differ from that of other entrepreneurs.
The Futures Orientation of Creative Sectors in
the Brussels Capital Region
Maya Van Leemput (Political sciences group
Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Science, Vrije
Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
In the IrisFutures research project an overview was created of future-oriented activities (2005- 2006) in the Brussels Capital Region (BCR). Attention was given to four themes: urban infrastructure, welfare, learning and creativity. The aim was to understand the range of future oriented work that takes place in the BCR and to identify some of the barriers and motivations for a future oriented practice.
Documents pertaining to future-oriented activities were consulted for the creation of a small database and in-depth interviewing of 56 individuals from organisations involved in these activities (in addition to 30 scoping interviews) provided qualitative data on the nature of the activities and the attitudes of their organisers and participants.
In the data-base list of 60 future oriented activities only 7 were categorised as directly concerned with creativity. On the other hand, in the overview of organisations involved in futures oriented work, cultural and creative organisations and enterprises were much better represented (20 out of 110 listed organisations with an additional 50 indirectly involved). The networks these organisations created related for their future oriented activities were larger than those in other categories (notably learning). More ‘activism’ or ‘change advocacy’ was found in this group of organisations than in others and their involvement with future oriented questions was often motivated in relation to this orientation. Several cultural organisations in Brussels moreover, set themselves up as experimental units for the exploration of new combinations of practice (concerning local development, employment and social cohesion in particular). We argue that the BCR case shows that creative sectors have an important role to play in social innovation.
The Innovation
Platform in the Region of Turku:
Why and How to Design Systemic
Innovation?
Antti Ainamo
(Institutions and Social Mechanisms, University of Turku, Finland)
“Cities, and spatial forms are a fundamental dimension of society, and thus change and evolve with society. So, the transition from the industrial society to the information age is also manifested in the transformation of cities. The Information Age, although obscured by ideology and hype, refers to a fundamental transformation of the social structure, around the interaction between culture, economy, institutions and the new technological paradigm resulting from the revolution in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), a revolution that took shape from the 1970s onwards, with its historical epicenter in Northern California. … New technologies allow for the simultaneous concentration and decentralisation of settlements and activities, connecting places through networks… The wealth of nations, and of cities, depends on innovative capacity.” (Castells, 2005).
In this idea paper – a paper to serve as a basis for further discussion than as of yet a fully developed research report -- I will use ideas originating or carried in the work of Manuel Castells, the Catalan sociologist, to analyze the innovation platform in the City of Turku. I will refer to evidence that exists in three sectors of unequal size in the Turku region -- information and communication, industrial design, and biotechnology -- to specify why and how there is a case to be made that a strategic project of regional renewal in Turku is, indeed, in place. I will also review ideas that exist in Turku, in other cities in Finland, and in research literature more generally on how this kind of renewal can be triggered and momentum maintained.
Castells has done with Peter Hall a study on the technopoles of the world in 1994 (Castells & Hall 1994), and Peter Hall a book book on Cities in Civilization (1998). These show that innovation is rooted in cities, and particularly in large cities and metropolitan areas. Philippe Aydalot, Peter Hall and Castells elaborated on the concept of milieu of innovation in 1984, long time before it would become popularised in the business schools under notions such as ‘clusters’ (Aydalot 1986). In the milieu of innovation perspective, regional systems of activity are territorially rooted, but there are also essential cultural and cognitive components at the source of their dynamics. They key differentiating factor between a good and a less good milieu is its networking capacity, both internally within the milieu and externally across milieus. The major metropolitan areas of the world are the sources or carriers of innovation and knowledge in the global network economy. These metropolitan areas network with each other and also with cities and areas of lesser size to expand their innovation synergy so that everybody in any region, who can bridge the digital divide and other such divides, can participate.
The conference organisers reserve all rights to
any programme or schedule
changes.