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Global Theory and Local Practicein Planning in Halifax: The SeaportRedevelopmentJill L. Grant , Robyn Holme & Aaron PettmanPublished online: 08 Dec 2008.

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ARTICLE

Global Theory and Local Practicein Planning in Halifax: The SeaportRedevelopmentJILL L. GRANT, ROBYN HOLME & AARON PETTMAN

Abstract

A case study of a redevelopment project in Halifax, Nova Scotia illustrates the way in whichcreative governance facilitated collaboration and innovation in a region with a history of poorinter-governmental relations and traditional urban–rural rivalries. Influential civic entrepreneurs

took advantage of the pervasive aura of the ‘creative cities’ discourse and the thick connectionsamong local social networks to bring the resources of three levels of government together tosupport the planning and development of a ‘cultural district’ on the Halifax waterfront.

Reforming the Development Agenda

In recent years Canadian cities have embraced an international discourse that seescities as key sites for innovation and economic development (Savitch & Kantor,2002; Bradford, 2004a; Bradford, 2004b; Scott, 2006). Richard Florida (2002,2005) popularized and expanded on the work of earlier economists and urbanists(for example, Jacobs, 1969, 1984; Logan & Molotch, 1987) to draw increasingattention to the role of cities and city regions in an era where service industries andcreative endeavours drive economic growth. The focus on cities as the dynamos ofthe new knowledge economy has given civic authorities in larger municipalities anopportunity to boost an urban agenda in ways not previously feasible (Wolfe,2003; Donald, 2005). Long treated as relatively weak ‘creatures of the provinces’(Magnusson, 2005), cities are seeking renewed government investment andrecognition as economic powerhouses and as places that need to attract talentedand creative workers (Andrew, 2001; Lorinc, 2006).Halifax, Nova Scotia—the largest city on the Atlantic coast of Canada—has

seen incremental changes in its economy over the past decade. An important portand hub of activity in times of war, Halifax today has federal and provincialoffices, several military bases, five universities, a complex of hospitals, and majorcultural facilities for the region. Tourism and light manufacturing are also

Jill L. Grant, Professor and Director of the School of Planning, Dalhousie University, Halifax,Box 1000, Halifax, NS, Canada B3J 2X4. Email: Jill.grant@dal.ca

Planning, Practice & Research, Vol. 23, No. 4,pp. 517–532, November 2008

ISSN 0269-7459 print/1360-0583 online/08/040517–16 � 2008 Taylor & Francis 517DOI: 10.1080/02697450802522848

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significant to the local economy. The legacy of economic development planning inNova Scotia traditionally pitted urban against rural interests (Lang, 1972; Beck,1973; Hodge & Robinson, 2001). Until the 1990s, industrialization and resourceextraction strategies dominated development policies (Savoie, 1986). Aconservative political culture that privileged the interests and voting power ofrural regions (Brym, 1979; Evans, 2005) left Halifax to fend for itself in promotingdevelopment until the 1990s. The emergence of a post-industrial economychallenged many of the premises of economic development in Canada, and led toreappraisal of the philosophy that informs practice.By the 1990s, provincial governments had begun to see cities in a new light. In

1996, the province amalgamated the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth, the town ofBedford, and the rural county into the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM). Thiscreated a city of about 340,000 people concentrated principally around Halifaxharbour. The Greater Halifax Partnership (GHP), a public–private agency createdin 1996 to facilitate development in the municipality, branded Halifax as a ‘smartcity’ and actively pursued new opportunities in the creative and knowledge sectors(GHP, 2007). In 2004, the Partnership and the Halifax Downtown BusinessCorporation brought Richard Florida to Halifax to speak to a rapt audience ofmore than 600 civic leaders and community members as the Partnership released astudy it had commissioned using Florida’s creativity indicators (Gertler &Vinodrai, 2004; GHP, 2004). Florida’s appearance reflected the ascendancy ofmany of his ideas in the development philosophy of the Halifax city region. As thestudy we report here indicates, Florida’s ideas quickly became the theoreticalunderpinning of innovative development collaborations in the city region.Under the leadership of influential community and business representatives,

HRM prepared and adopted Strategies for Success, an economic developmentstrategy that argues the city is competing in a global economy where‘interdependency and partnership is a central theme’ in local success (HRM,2005, p. 7). The ‘creative class’ agenda has become the development credo, as thestrategy notes:

Growth today depends on access to knowledge and our ability toinnovate and adapt. More specifically, successful growth is about smartcommunities attracting and retaining smart people. In a world economycentered on talented people, what’s important is being a place where thebest and the brightest want to live. (HRM, 2005, p. 8)

The advocates of the model hold that the integrated planning and delivery ofservices required to stimulate growth in a creative economy necessitates improvedinter-governmental collaboration. The economic strategy suggests that:

Retooling a city’s economy requires teamwork, not rigid bureaucraciesand petty turf wars. Working together toward common goals allows allpartners in our community, government agencies, non-profits, post-secondary institutions, and business to fully leverage their efforts. Theend result: everyone works faster and more nimbly to get the biggestbang for their economic development dollars. (HRM, 2005, p. 15)

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This paper briefly examines the ways in which ideas related to creative cities andcreative governance are influencing development practice in Halifax. For insightwe investigate the process of collaboration in planning and developing a culturaldistrict in Halifax, Nova Scotia: the Seaport Redevelopment project. We argue thatthe globalizing theory of the creative city provides an ideological framework withinwhich ‘civic entrepreneurs’—that is, community leaders who catalyse innovation(Wolfe & Gertler, 2004, p. 1088)—deploy their local social networks to facilitateintergovernmental collaboration. In the case we describe, dynamic civic entrepre-neurs ready to seize opportunities by taking advantage of thick social networks thatstreamlined communications and partnerships enabled new collaborative relation-ships that resulted in consensus around desirable options and rapid implementationfor development. Such creative governance inspired local government in Halifax totry to influence the future rules of the economic development game. In some ways,HRM’s Strategies for Success built on the lessons derived from the SeaportRedevelopment: in fact, the key innovators in the Seaport project participated in theadvisory committee HRM assembled to create its strategy.We begin by describing our research method and then review development

histories and practices in Halifax. An examination of the Seaport Redevelopmentprovides insight into the strategies used to facilitate collaboration between variouslevels of governments through the agency of civic entrepreneurs. The SeaportRedevelopment stands as a model of the kind of creative governance mechanismlocal development authorities hope to see become commonplace in Halifax. It alsoillustrates some of the limitations of collaboration within an entrepreneurial model.

Development Past and Future

As part of a national study examining how the social dynamics of city regionsshape innovative and creative capacity, we conducted interviews with peopleinvolved in economic, social and cultural development in Halifax in summer2006.1 Questions focused on the inter-relationships between and amonggovernment agencies, departments, and associations involved in developmentactivities. The research sought to determine whether new mechanisms ofassociative governance may be developing in pursuit of economic objectiveslinked to the creative cities agenda.For the Halifax case study we interviewed 14 representatives of associations

involved with economic, social or cultural development, and 13 representatives ofgovernment departments at municipal, provincial, and federal levels. Based on theresults of those interviews, we selected a particular development project to identifyindividuals for a further four interviews, bringing the total to 31 respondents. Inter-views followed a prepared set of questions, took approximately one hour each, andwere recorded and transcribed for analysis. To complement the interviews we revie-wed local plans, reports, and other documentary material related to the themesexplored.When asked ‘To what extent, and how well, do the three levels of government

work together in your local region or community?’, most respondents thoughtthings could improve. Those interviewed supported the growing consensus thateconomic development comes through enhancing creative industries and

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requires collaboration between a wide range of agencies and governmentdepartments. A provincial government representative suggested that relationswith the federal government are not always productive, leading the province tolook instead to the private sector and associations for collaboration.

The feds aren’t bad. There are tons of challenges when you deal withthem. They’re an Ottawa-based operation. They are annoying to deal withon most occasions, because they look down upon you and say, ‘well,you’re just Nova Scotia, who cares?’ Or ‘you’re doing things nobody elseis doing, like your Partnership Council, like what is that?’ Right, we’resaying that is the future. We try to relate to the private world and tophilanthropists and try to encourage them to stay at the table with us.

Responses from association representatives described a lack of communicationand coordination between the three levels of government. They revealed a historyof competition and opportunities lost. As one said:

So, I think that is often a problem in trying to make things happen is thatyou’re just dealing with three levels of government that all operate invery different ways—that may or may not talk to each other, and may ormay not even get along. We certainly have the sense that HRM has oftenbeen at odds with the provincial government, and so that kind of frostyrelationship comes up.

Regional politics may undermine opportunities for collaboration within Halifax.Several respondents described a rural–urban divide that rendered political leadersmore interested in rural constituencies than in urban issues. A federal governmentrepresentative expressed it well, beginning first by discussing the Atlantic CanadaOpportunities Agency (ACOA)—the federal economic development arm:

The official mandate of ACOA is rural development. Sorry, I shouldrephrase that a little bit: it’s community development, but that’s alwaysbeen interpreted as rural development. So its initiatives are rurally-based. The main community funding body—the Innovative Commu-nities Fund—is limited to rural Nova Scotia. You can’t use those fundsin the City of Halifax, the thought of ACOA being that Halifax is doingvery well on its own, it doesn’t need federal money. The Province ofNova Scotia, the Office of Economic Development which is responsiblefor it, has exactly the same focus. And the political mandate is driven bya Premier and a cabinet who all come from rural Nova Scotia. The Cityof Halifax has almost no representation in the Provincial Government,so if there’s a decision between developing Antigonish or Yarmouth anddeveloping Halifax, you know which one they’re going to pick.

In a context where the provincial and federal governments are led by right-of-centre parties, voters in the city of Halifax have elected centrist and left-of-centrerepresentatives. A strong legacy of clientelism and patronage politics in Nova

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Scotia (Simpson, 1988; MacLeod, 2006) led respondents to see Halifax aswielding slim political power in a region where the federal and provincialgovernments play important roles in the local economy (Antoft & Novack, 1998;Wolfe, 2003) but provide limited formal mechanisms for engaging with localgovernments (Berdahl, 2004).Within the municipality, rural councillors hold a majority on council. In recent

years, the council took responsibility for approving planning projects in thedowntown area away from Halifax downtown councillors, ensuring that a regionalperspective governs planning in the city centre (Grant, 2007). It will take time tosmooth out the rivalries that amalgamation sought to eliminate. Consolidating anurban agenda has proven contentious.While most respondents suggested that insufficient inter-governmental

collaboration presented a barrier to development in Halifax, several respondentspointed to two successful examples of cooperation to create innovative projects inthe city. The projects cited reflect the importance of informal intergovernmentalrelations (Johns et al., 2007) and demonstrate the rising significance of private–public partnerships in development promotion in the region. A provincialgovernment agency respondent described how the region secured a new operationscentre for the technology company, Research in Motion (RIM):

Let me give you an example: Research in Motion (RIM). We hadidentified them as a potential target. We spent about two months last fallworking absolutely insane hours. We had a very aggressive timeline tomake a decision on where the next big expansion was going to be. Wereally wanted the company because for one, who they are, and two, thenumber of jobs that it would create, but also the spin-off and potential forgrowth. . . . When you do these things, you really have to understandthere’s a whole look at behind the scenes: who to talk to, at what point andwhere you engage in with another organization, the feds, the province. Sowe put together an organization called Team Nova Scotia. We looked at20 to 25 organizations and individuals who we felt were critical to be onboard in order to make this deal happen. That included everything fromthe actual power and infrastructure point of view to Aliant (from a telecompoint of view) to an organization who understood real estate. The Premierwas a big part. We put him on a chartered plane, flew him to Waterloowhere the CEO is. We had to send the message that this was absolutelycritical to us. And there were many other organizations that we engaged inloosely to form Team Nova Scotia. What that did was send a verypowerful message to RIM that, ‘geez, those guys and gals in Nova Scotiagot their stuff together.’ Everybody is singing from the same song sheet.

Nova Scotia Business Inc., a private-sector-led provincial investment arm createdto help develop the province, led the deal to bring RIM to Nova Scotia (Provinceof Nova Scotia, 2006; Nova Scotia Business Inc., 2007). Creating a uniquecollaboration of key interests to secure a major player in the knowledge economyhad a galvanizing effect in the city. The RIM centre, with the potential for morethan 1,000 jobs, opened in Bedford in 2006. While the province described the

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‘Team Nova Scotia’ approach as aligning business, government, and academicinterests (Province of Nova Scotia, 2007), it appears that other levels ofgovernment played a minor role in securing the project. Major players in thenetwork engaged the participation of the Premier to lend credibility to the effort.Team Nova Scotia reflected both the commitment to secure knowledge-based‘creative’ industries and the influence of local social networks to forge powerfulcollaborations on short notice.The second project several respondents cited as an example of innovation

involved three levels of government in some capacity, although not as equalpartners. The Seaport Redevelopment2 created a plan for the re-use of under-utilized portions of the Halifax Port lands. The federal agency managing the Porthired consultants who led an initiative to plan for a ‘cultural district’ and improvedfacilities for visiting cruise ships. Richard Florida’s ideas about creative citiesfigured explicitly in the project. An association respondent involved in the artsdescribed the context of the project:

They’ve looked at models like the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto andGranville Island in Vancouver and said, ‘we think this will be a positiveaddition to Halifax and not only that, it will make us money’. The [Port]isn’t interested in charity; they’re interested in doing things that are goingto be an investment for them; that is going to be a good return for them.They’re not personally going to be developing this area . . ., but they arelooking for the right partners to come down and develop it. They have acertain venue for arts and culture. . . . So you’re going to have themuseum down there which already existed but they’re expanding, you’regoing to have a large convention centre, the Cunard Centre which wasjust built there, which is an open space. And word on the street is they aregoing the Nova Scotia Designer Craft Council, the market and wintermarkets down there . . . Their whole focus is on [culture] and I think thatin itself takes all of what all the other cities have recognized and createsan economic catalyst and sets up the position for it to happen.

To try to understand how inter-governmental collaboration worked in this casewhen most respondents otherwise described frustrating barriers between the threelevels of governments, we conducted interviews with principals involved in theSeaport Redevelopment project and reviewed related documents. We learned thatproject planning began with the hiring of consultants and release of aredevelopment plan in 2003 (Zeidler Grinnell Partnership & Lydon LynchArchitects Limited, 2003). By 2006 an events centre opened, and in 2007 a neweducational campus operated on part of the site. In the next section we explorehow the necessary partnerships and permissions came together to facilitate therapid planning and development of a cultural district.

A Creative Collaboration

Since the 1980s, cities across the world have pursued waterfront redevelopmentas former port lands have become economically redundant (Gordon, 1997).

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Once important sites of production, historic waterfronts increasingly serve asvenues of consumption and entertainment (Norcliffe et al., 1996).Given the success of the Port in moving its project from concept to reality

within a two-year period, it seems the federal agency responsible for managingland in the Port of Halifax learned many of the lessons of earlier developers.Gordon’s (1997) analysis of four major waterfront projects indicated that majorpolitical battles meant projects took 5–10 years to complete. Gordon argued thatdevelopers can be more successful by managing the start-up process, buildingconsensus, and understanding local dynamics.Gordon identified establishing good relationships with local governments,

creating public benefits through the project (e.g. parks, access), and being ready tochange the programme of the physical plan to adapt to new priorities as harbingersof success. These features characterized planning for the Port cultural districtproject.Sheds 20–23 on the Halifax harbour are part of a 7.5-hectare site that the Port

identified as under-utilized and targeted for a waterfront destination project to‘bookend’ the southern portion of the Halifax waterfront. The site already houseda national immigration museum, low-cost studios for artists and artisans, andfacilities for disembarking cruise-ship passengers. The Port hired a local projectarchitect who partnered with a Toronto architect to prepare a concept plan thatenvisioned a ‘creativity zone’ that might make ‘a breeding place for Halifax’s newcreative workforce’ (Zeidler Grinnell Partnership & Lydon Lynch ArchitectsLimited, 2003, p. 10). The plan suggested relocating the provincial natural historymuseum and a not-for-profit science museum to the site to create a museumprecinct. To implement the plan, the Port needed support from the province torelocate the museum, but respondents told us that negotiations with the provincemoved slowly. To build support for the redevelopment the consultants launched apublic consultation process in late 2003: through that, new partnerships andcollaborations took root, momentum for the redevelopment grew, and the projectmoved rapidly to fruition.The Port had a new president3 with strong prior connections both to the

provincial government and to the private sector. Several respondents identified thePort president as a key source of innovation in enabling the project, encouragingstaff to try new methods of achieving the Port’s aims. Clearly, however, theconsultants hired also played a major role in promoting the creative cities agenda.A local project architect put together a multi-disciplinary team for the proposal.

The team included local landscape architects who regularly work with the projectarchitect, and new partners from Toronto selected for their expertise. As theproject architect noted:

The Port put out a request for proposals for the redevelopment planalmost four years ago. They were looking for people who had a similarexperience, companies who have had a similar experience, not justplanning but with a development plan. That was important to thembecause they had centered it around the idea of adaptive re-use of whathad been freight sheds into new uses. So it had to make economicsense too.

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We sought out the [Toronto architects] because they have been involvedin waterfront redevelopment projects all over the world. They are aninternational firm: very reputable, lots of depth of experience in this kindof work. We formed a collaboration: essentially a 50/50 collaboration todo the Master Plan. It took us about a year to develop this. They werethe ones that first introduced us to Richard Florida and to similarprojects that they had been involved in, in Toronto.

Committed strongly to the idea of cultural development being a driver foreconomic development, the Toronto architect brought in a consultant developer tohelp to implement the project. To make the project happen, the Port needed otherlevels of governments to provide anchor tenants and to facilitate transportationimprovements to the downtown core. The consultant developer, who became a keyenabler of the collaborations that ensued, recognized the need to develop localconsensus around the project:

In Halifax, one of the things that is really important for us about thatproject is that first of all I think you need to understand the context.Federal agencies like the [Port] have no obligation to seek municipalapproval with what to do with their lands. However, and I will credit theenlightenment of the [president] of the [Port], we decided that we wouldseek input from the public and we did that in two ways. One was toactually identify stakeholders: I mean, I consider everyone a stakeholder,but to identify individuals or organizations that had an active stake in theplace, either by virtue of being users of the space or being the kinds ofoccupiers of space that we wanted in the long term. Service organi-zations, community groups, you name it. Anybody that we felt repres-ented a vested interest, we interviewed. I think, it’s been a few years, but Ithink we did about 150 interviews and then we went to the public.

The consultant developer flags several important issues in this passage. First, as afederal authority the Port does not need permissions from other levels ofgovernment for its projects, nor does it require public support. In this case,however, the Port president recognized that collaboration and a level of localconsensus could improve the project’s prospects for success. Second, theconsultant indicates that organizers did extensive surveying prior to holding anypublic events. This allowed them to test the water for their ideas while assessingsupport for the project.At one of the public consultation meetings, the president of a cultural education

institution attended. The institution had been looking for space to expand and wasfrustrated with the slow pace of negotiations with the provincial WaterfrontDevelopment Corporation for another site. The education institution president,described as an innovator by several respondents we interviewed from the culturalsector, stopped to chat with the consultant developer about the prospects forcollaboration. A staff person respondent from the cultural education institutiondescribed what happened.

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We established that was a desirable location for [the cultural institution].The space was 70,000 square feet. At that time, they were justdeveloping the Master Plan and coming up with the idea of developingthat area and calling the Seaport a cultural district. So they saw [us] as avery important tenant in order to make that district work, to make itcook, to have the right complement of people and activity going on.[The consultant developer] was the first person to see us as the firststepping-stone . . . [and] wrote a report that got us into the first level ofdiscussion.

The province had already guaranteed the cultural institution the funding it neededfor a new campus. The project now had the key tenant it needed to proceed,bringing the province into the collaboration ‘by the back door’. The culturalinstitution, tied closely to the municipal council through its president’sinvolvement with the city’s Cultural Advisory Committee, urged that the Portwork with the municipality to secure planning permissions for the project. Tomake a campus work in this location, students would need access to improvedpublic transit (provided by the municipality). Improved transportation links wouldenhance the overall viability of the cultural district project. Thus the culturalinstitution president functioned as a key enabler in bringing provincial funding andmunicipal bureaucrats into the process. Once invited by the Port, the HRMplanning department and transportation planning department both becameinvolved in the planning for the project.

The Role of Florida’s Theory

In development, commitment is essential and timing crucial. In the Seaportproject, a theorist who never sat at the table influenced the direction and pace ofthe redevelopment. By the time project planning began, Richard Florida’s theoriesabout the creative class and creative cities permeated the urban agenda in Halifax.‘Local buzz’ was reinforcing ‘global pipelines’ transferring developmentphilosophies to the region (Bathelt et al., 2002; Wolfe & Gertler, 2004). HRM’seconomic development plan and its cultural plan were headed towards identifyingcreative cluster opportunities (HRM, 2005, 2006).One government respondent confirmed that many people were ‘grabbing onto

the Richard Florida concept’. Another said:

So, I think in a way, like culture is on everybody’s agenda now. It’s notsome frivolous little side-bar in society. It’s become a cornerstone togrowth. You know, some people say well, ‘the four pillars of society’.You know, there were three. Now there’s four: education, health, socialsecurity, well guess what, culture! Culture has become impor-tant. . . . and we’re seeing within Nova Scotia, we’re saying ‘culture’sgood’, and people are saying ‘yes it is’, and they’re rising up through it.That’s why what he’s saying—what Richard Florida is saying—is soimportant.

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The GHP saw in Richard Florida the means to influence public opinion abouteconomic development. It commissioned a study to apply his ideas to Halifaxand invited Florida to the city (Gertler & Vinodrai, 2004; GHP, 2004).Several respondents noted that Florida’s theory influenced the Seaport project.For instance, the staff project liaison for the cultural institution felt thatRichard Florida helped to sell the idea of a cultural district to the governmentpartners:

We just found this whole arts and culture idea to be so in a way veryforeign to them. It’s not part of the business of a port, an arts and culturaldistrict. It was a very odd idea; it kind of didn’t really fit with theirinstitutional personality at all. So it’s really amazing that they took it on.They deserve a lot of kudos for taking that on. . . .

Also this seems to have happened at a time in Halifax where the timingis right because of this city’s interest in developing a culturalenvironment and Richard Florida just visited the city two years ago,the timing seemed right. If it had been five years ago, people would havenot been interested. It would have never been in the people at the Port’sframe of reference. But this is a fairly well documented idea, the ideaabout harnessing creative spaces, a generator of activity, all those thingsthat make a neighbourhood grow.

The partners in the process and the varying respondents we interviewed acceptedFlorida’s ideas uncritically. The Port advertises its ‘planned new cluster of culturalindustries, special events and institutions’ (Port of Halifax, 2005). The GHPactively promotes the HRM economic plan and assiduously sells Halifax as a‘smart city’ (GHP, 2007). The creative cities agenda has become hegemonicideology in development discourse in Halifax.

The Role of Social Networks

Competing interests regarding waterfront redevelopment require unique compro-mises (Gordon, 1997; Hoyle, 2000). The Halifax context required that consultantsaccepted local desires to maintain a historic working port (Hoyle, 1999; HRM,2000) and retain studio space for artists (Halifax Seaport, 2007; Port of Halifax,2007). The Port learned from earlier problems the provincial WaterfrontDevelopment Corporation had experienced in developing its holdings in Halifax,as the consultant developer brought in to facilitate the project noted.

The other thing that we did that was really interesting was we actuallywent through the process of getting a development agreement for thefirst phase of the project. We actually went through the processvoluntarily with the regional municipality. And part of the reason thatwe did that was that we saw that there had been . . . the WaterfrontDevelopment had tried to do what, we should say, didn’t move as easilyas it might. There was never a meeting of the minds between the

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Waterfront Development and the HRM. And we felt that we would bemuch better served if we had HRM on our side.

I think that was a really important thing to do because the support we’vefrom the HRM on our side for our initiatives has been huge. It’s startingto pay off in areas like public transportation. Because we have workedwith them on the whole concept plan and we went through the wholeprocess of a development application for [the cultural institution] and thechanges we were making in that building. We did a full transportationstudy for them. That level of cooperation manifested itself, that spirit ofworking together, that transportation study: it’s not a commitment, butit’s an undertaking on their part.

As a federal agency, ‘a government business enterprise’ (Port of Halifax, 2005), thePort had the power to pursue its project without participation from other govern-ments, but staff understood that collaboration with lower levels of governmentwould better serve their ends. Municipal staff supported the redevelopment projectand urged revising the municipal plan for the area to accommodate the new uses.Because the cultural institution needed speedy approval to get into its new campus,however, the Port decided not to wait for a new local plan to be prepared.Expedient occupation of the premises removed the opportunity for the city and thepublic to revise the plan prior to the project taking place. That aside, however, thePort’s willingness to collaborate with local authorities and to present its plans inopen house venues engendered goodwill that the Port expects to return lastingbenefits.When asked what role collaboration played in the project, the consultant

developer replied:

Huge, huge—because if the public was against what we were doing or ifthe HRM was against what we were doing, we would be running intoroadblocks. What I think has happened because we really did put theunderpinning in place was to get people on board right away. We’ve hadno resistance. The worst thing a developer can have is resistance . . .from the public or different levels of government because that can slowyou down and especially if you’ve already started to spend money. Youknow what makes the economics of development work is that once youstart to spend money you start to get revenue quickly. So once you startto spend you want to make sure that all of your permits are in placebecause that is the last thing you want to slow you down. For thatreason, we have been able to move swiftly.

Local social networks played a significant role in the varying collaborationsthroughout the project (see Figure 1). Halifax is a small city where professionalsand political leaders interact in a range of social and professional contexts. Whilethis creates conditions that facilitate the rapid development of trust (Ettlinger,2003), it also raises concerns about nepotism or favouritism. For instance, throughan open competition, the cultural institution retained an architect to design its Port

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campus. The campus architect selected had previously designed a house for apresident of the institution; the architect’s child had attended school with theinstitution’s project liaison. The project architect, who had also competed for thecampus design, was sanguine about the influence of social networks in designcommissions.

We were after the [campus] job and didn’t get it because [the campusarchitect] had a previous relationship with the president of [the culturalinstitution] and he was the favoured son. You know, it’s as simple as that.

Good social and professional connections are important to building trust. As theconsultant developer explained, professionals coming into the local context ‘fromaway’ rely on their connections to respected local designers to smooth their way inthe community.

I think development has to do so much with what happens locally: Imean the public and what the public think, how they trust people.Government is local. You would always as a developer, develop a wayto partner with someone locally. So that’s what happens a lot with firms.[The Toronto architect], for example, would be going into somewherelike Halifax and would always have a local partner. Somebody whoknows the way things work. But the local partner may not have thebroadest of experience. So what you’re trying to do is combine that kindof big thinking with local knowledge and credibility: the ability to makepeople feel comfortable. I mean any time I sit up on a stage at a public

FIGURE 1. Links in the Seaport Redevelopment network.

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meeting, I always have [the local project architect] beside me becauseI’m the guy ‘from away’ with all these grand, wild ideas, but with [theproject architect] beside me they trust him because he’s from there orhe’s done it before. He’s not going to let it get out of hand. That’s thebest balance.

Innovations associated with making the Seaport Redevelopment possible reveal athick web of mutually reinforcing social and professional associations operatingboth within the Halifax local context and within and across the professional designfield. Respondents indicated that previous social and professional collaborationsenhanced confidence and trust, and linked personal relationships with professionalnetworks.Figure 1 illustrates the key players our interviews identified in the social network

that facilitated the Seaport Redevelopment. In a relatively small community likeHalifax, key innovators or civic entrepreneurs like the leaders (presidents) of theinstitutions who participated in the project can create opportunities to bring othergovernment partners into a collaborative process. Enablers—like the consultantdeveloper and the staff persons tasked with making the project happen—took theideas and ran with implementation. Previous social connections between theplayers enhanced trust and drew new participants into the collaboration morequickly than might have otherwise been possible. Such tight social networks bytheir nature, however, exclude many more potential participants than they include.

Planning for Innovation

Concerted efforts to promote community development require that all players singfrom the same songbook. This study of Halifax indicates that the creative citiesagenda has become the melody of choice, used to orchestrate collaborationsbetween governments, associations, private businesses, and the public. Critiquesof the creative cities discourse raise significant questions about whether the agendadresses up old-fashioned growth machine dynamics in trendy new cultural garb(for example, Malanga, 2004; Peck, 2005). We might ask whether the practice of‘creative governance’ and ‘consultation’ as employed in the Seaport Redevelop-ment provides the illusion of public participation within a process that reliesheavily on ‘old boys’ networks’ and expert judgement.In the Halifax context we found considerable evidence that Richard Florida’s

ideas have widespread influence among disparate groups—from developmentagencies, to cultural associations, to government employees. The only elements ofcriticism about ‘improving’ the city we heard came from an antipovertyassociation that saw no benefit of growth for disadvantaged people. In responseto the question, ‘How do the three levels of government work together to promoteinnovation and development in the region?’, the respondent said:

See unfortunately, this is the wrong sort of questionnaire to bring downto a poverty group, right, because we don’t see the economic spin offs ofa booming economy, right? Matter of fact, we’re generally used, abusedand thrown away by a booming economy.

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Such comments reflect a degree of scepticism about whether the tolerance andinclusivity held to be important in the creative cities agenda is implemented in practice.In planning for innovation, those concerned with substantive policy and

outcomes ask whether intergovernmental relations impede or enhance theachievement of policy objectives (Cameron & Simeon, 2002). Savitch and Kantor(2002, p. 38) argue that ‘Political systems that allow for vertical integration amongcities, regions, provinces, and national government will enhance opportunities forachieving policy objectives’. Creative governance mechanisms may facilitatecollaboration where conventional strategies have failed (Healey, 1997, 2004).Innovative outcomes may require new relationships between government agenciesof the kind seen in the Seaport project, but such innovations are more likely toaddress some policy objectives (like economic revitalization) than others (like spinoff opportunities for disadvantaged persons).By working outside conventional procedures, the Port ensured that a

redevelopment initiative with widespread support in the cultural developmentcommunity moved forward in a timely way. Required by its mandate to generaterevenues, the Port side-stepped usual inter-governmental protocols and innovated inestablishing creative governance mechanisms to enable its project to get off theground. To do that, it engaged some local planning mechanisms but circumventedothers. It evicted artists from some low-rent studios to establish a cultural and artscentre. It turned an industrial warehouse district into a happening space wherecruise-ship passengers will disembark in the midst of Halifax culture. By embracingthe global theory of the creative city and making good use of local social networksfor facilitating collaborative practice, the proponents of the project facilitated thetransformation of part of the Halifax waterfront into a cultural destination.

Notes1. Support for this research, provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under

MCRI Grant 412-2005-1001, is gratefully acknowledged. The national study, led by David Wolfe at theUniversity of Toronto, is examining 15 cities of varying sizes across Canada.

2. This project began as the ‘Seawall’ Redevelopment but the Port ‘rebranded’ it in 2006.3. We have changed some job titles and institutional names to try to obscure the identity of key individuals in the

networks.

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