Charles Landry, author of The Creative City, who spoke at the Creative Cities conference in Lexington, identified three dimensions that a city needs to master to build a culture of creativity and innovation – especially a city that aspires to become the “idea capital of the world, where imaginations and all individuals thrive,” which is the vision statement that’s been crafted for Louisville.
Talent Attraction and Retention rank first on Landry’s list – a point on which most of the big thinkers about the future of cities agree upon. That’s why the Deep Driver of Change to raise education attainment in the Louisville region is so critical.
Landry has a novel idea for his second dimension, however: what he calls Niche Centrality, which means identifying what a particular city offers that is different than every other city and attractive. What comes to people’s minds when they think of your city, he asks?
Fortunately and unfortunately, according to national research conducted a couple of years ago on behalf of the Community Branding Project, the answer to that question for Louisville will occur next week -- and the downside is that while the Kentucky Derby is a wonderful event, it feeds the notion that Louisville is a rural area populated mostly by horses.
That’s part of why the leaders behind the Branding Project chose “Possibility City” as a moniker to try to redefine Louisville -- as a place where more than a horse races happens.
That impulse feeds into the third element, as well: Critical Mass, by which Landry means whether the city is big enough to be taken seriously but small enough to make things happen. That, indeed, is part of what makes the idea of Louisville as “Possibility City” resonate: it is large enough to be taken seriously – under Landry’s definition, Louisville is classified as a large city – but small enough to manage and make things happen.
The key things we need to make happen are the Deep Drivers of Change: raise education attainment (see #1 above), grow more 21st Century jobs (ditto on #1) and protect and enhance the quality of place that makes Louisville distinctive – take that Niche Centrality beyond Derby and utilize that Critical Mass to redefine Louisville.
Get creative: move into the top tier of American cities.