Creative cities and soft factors of development – ideological context of

brownfields regeneration

Jaroslav KoutskýÚstí nad Labem, 22.09.2010

Structure of the presentation

• Introduction

• Trends in spatial development

• Actual academic discourses

• Soft factors of development

• Discussion

Trends in spatial development• City (centre) renaissance

• Emergence of new economic industries

• Specific concentration of talented people, economic power and decisions (local buzz versus global pipelines)

• Rising of symbolic and aesthetic function of places. Urban design and image of places go forward

• Localization factor change. Emergence of soft factor of development (amenities, milieu)

Connection and implication to our topic:

„Localization and (from other perspective) regional/local situation matters more then ever“

Strong relation to physical changes of cities, losing of old functions for some places and buildings, strong pressure for regeneration process

Actual accademic discurs• Notion of innovations – Spatial dimension of knowledge economy

(Phil Cook, Bjorn Asheim etc.)

• Notion of creative industries and people – Economy led by creative people (Richard Florida)

• Notion of resilience- Adaptation/Adaptibility of places (Andy Pike)

Who and what is creating regional advantage? What are key factors of changes and progress?

Making of regional development – Czech Republic

• Very week collaboration of private and public sector

• Scepticism for innovations and new concepts

• Lack of elites, visions and community involvement

• Week links among research and practical sphere

• Overrating of Cohesion Policy of EU

Soft (entrepreneurial and individual) factors of development

SF have in/-direct impact on spatial mobility of human resources and businesses and the economic performance

For example:• Business friendly public administration• Image of the locality and local identity• Quality of housing, shopping, public transportation• Quality of built amenities – sport and culture infrastructure,• Quality of environment and perception of natural amenities; • Quality of education in the locality• In broade sense: Social capital and quality of communication and

cooperation in the locality, quality of innovation system, innovative Milieu, ….

Soft factors of development - selected hypothesis

• In the most developed localities in Western Europe (but not only) is the improvement of soft factors important and broadly discussed by academics and practicioners (in the framework of high road development strategies) after hard factors became ubiquitous

• The cities and regions in Western Europe create institutions and implement strategies for improvement of SF (local governance structures and policies) and subsequently attracting creative class and businesses with high added value

• But due to „cognitive lock-in“ in postcommunist countries and their mainly urbanised and industrialised regions there is no academic discussion and no practical systemic activity in the field of development of soft factors

Central Europe - soft factors

• In Central Europe „low road strategies“ (via low costs) and re-industrialisation are forced by governance structures: emphasis on the improvement of hard factors (large industrial zones, investment incentives …), no attention to soft factors

• There is a need for academic critical discussions on growing importance of SF and a need for consequent implementation of new development strategy for the old industrial regions in the Czech Republic (not „only“ hard factors but soft factors as well)

• Through know-how transfer from analogous localities and fine-tuned adaptation / imitation (best practice approach) of strategies for the improvemt of soft factors it is possible to improve the quality of life in OIA and attract or stabilized high quality human resources

Research questions

• What are the most important hard/soft factors of development / restructuring / regeneration of old industrial areas in general?

• Why are the soft factors becoming so important in current socioeconomic development?

• What role do the soft factors of development play in the restructuring of OIR

in cities of Europe (Germany, Austria, GB)? • How can be improved the quality of particular soft factors (in Europe/EU)?

What are the strategies in analogous localities / regions? • What is the current quality of soft factors in our 2 OIRs in CR? • What has to be done to improve significantly the quality of soft factors in

OIRs in the Czech Republic?

Preliminary conclusions

Nowadays the city and regional marketing are the institutional instruments for the improvement of soft factors like image, cultural infrastructure and events, housing, …and for the improvement of the attractivity of the city in order to attract more creative industries and creative people

Thank you for attention

jaroslav.koutsky@ujep.cz