Whether you live in Brazil, England or Lansing, the basics behind building strong, creative cities are the same: cater to creatives, embrace entrepreneurship and strengthen community connection and collaboration.
During the recent
Creative Cities 2.0 Summit in Detroit, leaders from all over the world shared their city-building ideas.
During one breakout session, English creative and entrepreneur,
Anamaria Wills, Brazilian community consultant,
Ana Carla Fonseca Reis and a
Michigan State University (MSU) economic development field agent,
Dave Ivan, told leaders how the creative class can make small cities (5,000 to 45,000 people) great.
The recipe: Unlock the city’s creative geniuses; give them some paint and a building; throw them all into a room; see what happens.
England’s Manufacturing GemIn 1997, Wills became part of an effort to revitalize Huddersfield, England.
Much like Lansing, Huddersfield is a manufacturing town that had an identity crisis of sorts when its manufacturing base dropped from 80 percent to less than 25 percent.
In 1997, the European Union (EU) held an economic revitalization competition, offering $3 million pounds to the cities with the best, most innovative redevelopment proposals. Huddersfield was one of 500 cities to compete and one of only 25 to win.
“They got it by saying, ‘We want creativity to be the catalyst of economic revitalization,’” Wills says.
The 140,000-person city immediately got to work creating infrastructure and creative hubs for artists, performers and other creative professionals.
With its prize money, Huddersfield took a rundown, former toilet manufacturing building. They turned it into a large creative space that now houses more than 15 different small, creative businesses, each with their own offices and a communal space where they can bounce ideas off each other.
Huddersfield calls this concept a “Media Centre.” Huddersfield’s first Media Centre was so popular it quickly expanded into a bigger space. It now includes four buildings that house 600 creative businesses.
“It was most successful in that it created a reputation and an atmosphere for the city that it had never dreamed of having before,” she says.
The Media Centre attracts young creatives to the city and also allows single graphic artists, artists, writers, to make money doing what they love. Media Centre also offer low rent or subsidized rent to help creative entrepreneurs get started.
“The great feather in the cap that everybody loved was that there was a poll taken nationally and Huddersfield became identified as the sixth greatest city in England,” Wills says.
Wills talks about creating an inclusive art hub, as does Ivan, who points to teeny tiny St. Joseph, Michigan, on the west side of the state, as a great example of a community that has used the creative class to boost its credentials.
The 6,500-person town created an arts incubator “to create a critical mass, if you will, so they would become a destination for tourists,” Ivan says.
Creating a SCENEWhile the Capital region certainly has its share of creative spaces—the
Wharton Center,
Boarshead Theater,
Haze Gallery and many more—it doesn’t yet have an artist-based collaborative that competes on the scale of the Media Centre.
But with several new and growing venues, it is making important steps.
In 2004, the City of East Lansing, the state and a group of volunteer artists took over an abandoned building in downtown East Lansing and created
SCENE Metrospace.
SCENE Metrospace hosts all kinds of artistic expression, including music, theater and art. Lauren Ciesa, president of Old Town Lansing’s
Ciesa Designs, says SCENE Metrospace has really helped pull the arts community together.
The creative industry “has been so splintered, so broken down into these disciplines,” he says. “The theater people stick with the theater people, and the arts people with the arts people. I think SCENE Metrospace has been very good in bringing multi-media types together.”
Not only is SCENE bringing art folks together, it’s also become a destination spot for the region.
“I’ve talked to people who have not been down here in a while who come down for that, specifically as an attraction,” says Tim Dempsey, with the City of East Lansing. “That definitely attracts a broad demographic and a sustainable amount of the under-35 group.”
Old Town Lansing and East Lansing have also created artist co-ops, which have helped centralize a group of creatives. The
City of East Lansing even subsidizes two co-op users who can’t afford rent.
Ciesa gives the City of East Lansing credit for deciding to take a chance on SCENE Metrospace, a chance that’s proven to be a good downtown investment.
Innovation CenterAs Wills points out, though, creating a true hub is not just about providing offices or business services. "Together, we’re providing an unusual service which provides networks [and] opportunities to meet new people," she says. "Everything we do is geared toward supporting businesses and making them more successful.”
“I think it would be an incredible thing to do,” Ciesa says about taking the next step and creating a large-scale center like the one in Huddersfield. “It’s getting started that can be hard. Just unlock the damn things (old buildings) and let the artists take over. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes we over-think things.”
Moving in that direction,, East Lansing recently added the Technology Innovation Center, 7,000 square feet of space available to entrepreneurs and small business owners that concentrates innovation in the local tech industry.
“This is an opportunity where entrepreneurs can get affordable space in an environment that allows them to work with similar entrepreneurs, so they have the support and network,” Dempsey says.
This technology-hub concept is working. Dempsey says the space is almost filled and he anticipates continued demand for more industry specific hubs.
“We’ve talked about doing something about this on a culinary level,” Dempsey adds. “I think the demand’s out there, but it has yet to be filled.”
A retail incubator would also help curb the rotating door of small businesses that open up shop in East Lansing and, due to a lack of resources, pack up shortly thereafter, Dempsey says.
“The challenge with anything is being able to have enough resources to do it and making sure that you have the support services to go along with the base,” he says.
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Ivy Hughes is the managing editor of Capital Gains and would jump at the chance to have an office in a creative center.
Dave Trumpie is the managing photographer for Capital Gains. He is a freelance photographer and owner of Trumpie Photography.
Photos:
Huddersfield, England's Media Centre buildings
Scene Metrospace in East Lansing
Lauren Ciesa in Old Town
East Lansing's Technology Innovation Center
Lansing Photographs © Dave Trumpie
Huddersfield photos © Media Centre Network