Cultural Planning for Creative Communities
Gord Hume, Municipal World, 2009
Review by: Brian McGaffigan

This book “addresses the value and centrality of culture to community building in Canada.” It is a How-to informative book. While it is obviously focused on the urban there is one example of a rural case study given in the appendix: Small Rural – Prince Edward County,Ontario. Of course all concepts are transferable! The book “provides insight on how to prime the Cultural Planning pump to move culture to the centre of overall community building.”

I was fascinated by the choice of the statue of the Goddess of Winged Victory on the facing page to Chapter 1. The Goddess of Winged Victory is of course modeled by Charles McKechnie after the Winged Victory of Samothrace discovered in the city of the gods on the Island of Samothraki, Greece – now in the Louvre, Paris. It can be seen on top of the Princes’ Gate (completed in 1927) at the entrance to the CNE in Toronto. Why do I know this – because I am researching the roots of our Western Culture (Civilization) in the Judaic and Greco-Roman world!

I like the sense of municipal cultural planning as being “about place and placemaking” – about “identifying and harnessing all the cultural assets and resources” in our communities – about “becoming a creative community.” It reinforces the reality that “the quality of life a community offers is often the most distinctive difference and a major deciding factor in where businesses will locate, or re-locate.” According to the author, Cultural Planning is firmly entrenched as the fourth pillar of good local government, joining “the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainable communities.”

I agree wholeheartedly with the author when he states categorically that “old thinking about economic development and a community’s prosperity are not effective today,” and Municipalities that want to prosper “are finding new ways of delivering their traditional services.
It is all about change!

This book is about how to create, develop, and implement this new way of thinking and acting for local councils and their communities, whether they are a village or a vast metropolitan region – they can become a Creative Community by using “Creative City” concepts. (p. 8)

A community that is rooted in the past, that doesn’t understand or respect the changing social climate, that has a rotting core, that is environmentally unfriendly, and that isn’t responding to the new wants and needs of business and workers alike, is not going to prosper in the future. (p. 12)

It is not a role that comes easily to some elected and appointed officials. It is a profound shift. Acknowledging the need to do municipal government in a different way is intimidating for many elected councilors. It is safer and more comfortable to keep on the same old path, approving the same old reports and recommendations. (p. 12)

Having lived and prospered in Toronto as a new immigrant engineer to Canada (March 19, 1966) I was fascinated to read that Toronto Mayor David Miller stated very clearly in 2007: “We must put creativity at the heart of Toronto’s economic development strategy” p. 35). Now as Mayor of a very small prairie village I can echo that same voice – we must put creativity at the heart of our village BUT more importantly at the heart of our “Region.”

Whether we accept it or not globalization is a force to be reckoned with and we ignore it to our peril. We ought to care about global economic theory and bring it down to the local level understanding how it is impacting our community and how to adapt to it.

There are several mega-economic theories out there in the world, ranging from Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat which argues that because of the Internet and technology, people and businesses in India, for example, can compete with the United States; to Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City which postulates that the future economic power-hoses will be centred in a few mega-regions around the world, such as greater Tokyo ($2.5 trillion in economic output), the New York-Boston-Washington triangle ($2.2 trillion) and a few others.

We simply cannot ignore global economic patterns. So, what is “Our City”?

We need to discover who the leaders of the future are and if they are being effectively integrated into new global realities at the local level? As I have mentioned this book is a How-to book and there are lots of suggestions for everything!

I was impressed by the author’s willingness to Borrow a Page from the Social Enterprise Movement. Since being elected to the Board of the Alberta Community Economic Development Network Coop (AB CED Network Coop) http://www.abced.ca I have been introduced to a whole new language. Social Enterprise is one such term which I am embracing. According to the author Social Enterprise is about “advancing systemic solutions to major social problems.” In recent years “it has become a global movement tackling issues of poverty, health, economic development, child welfare, etc.” Surely all these issues are RURAL issues! Social entrepreneurs in contrast to current methodologies of dealing with the issues by identifying a need, raising money and delivering a program to address the need, are “driven not just to serve the need; they are determined to solve the problem.” (p. 63)

I like that.

I also like the inference that there is a need to develop “a new breed of “intermediary” with the competency to communicate in the language of developers, planners, community activists, economic developers, etc. (p. 65).” I would add to this list ‘faith-communities’.

Chapter 8 of the book develops the idea that “Cultural Planning is at the heart of good, sustainable development” and that “bad development is often the result of poor Cultural Planning, and it can have consequences that ravage a community.” Oh my!! We ‘ruralites’ need to do some repenting and take charge of our own future – I sense revolution is in the air as we discern our own place in the new global reality of our day.

Placemaking for municipal purposes is defined as an urban design process aimed at creating neighbourhoods that offer a strong sense of community, including a distinct character, healthy lifestyles, and a high quality of life. (p. 68)

Many ideas throughout this book “are intended to provoke a new way of looking at communities and municipal governments, and how they do business.” In this regard I believe that we “need to re-think some of the old ways of doing business” – developing new partnerships – dare I add regional governments?

Of course, Municipal Cultural Planning is still in its formative years “evolving and maturing”. The author is clear “that in a world and in a time of increased focus on community sustainability, the time is now for pushing forward with Municipal Cultural Planning in communities of all sizes” (95). While it takes “huge dollars and effort to change a [your] community’s image and brand … it takes a total community effort.” The author suggests that “this is very hard to do and the risks of failure are very high.”

But surely the risk has to be taken and the time to act is now.