Queen of Shops Saves Britain's High Street

Celebrity retail expert Mary Portas has published her report into the UK's retail sector, telling the Government how to rejuvenate city centres and advocating 'town teams'. In the report there are 28 recommendations on what can be done by government, local authorities and business to help high streets revive. Of course, cultural planners, urban design and niche retail specialists have been arguing for special measures to be taken to revitalize town centres for ages... but that was yesterday and we are not celebrities...

Cultural Regeneration 2.0 Innovative approaches to regeneration

Interesting debate to follow if you are a member of the Academy of Urbanism Group on Linkedin.

Riots in North London

Public spending cuts and urban riots. Self explanatory.

Norway

Our heart goes out to our friends and colleagues in Norway during these difficult times. Your openness and democratic values are an inspiration to us all.

Bastille Day Reading

To celebrate the 14th of July in true French style, we suggest you revisit the Penguin collection of essays by Georges Perec titled Species of Spaces and Other Pieces . His reflections on how space begins and how it is made are playful and poetic. In essence, by asking the question: 'where is our space?' Perec shows that, above all, planning needs to fulfil human needs and urbanism has to be the ultimate goal of place-making.

Rethinking the Creative City

Cities from all over the world are undergoing change and transformation, and some are developing interesting models of social and urban innovation, mostly out of necessity and only with hindsight do they see themselves as 'creative cities'. For at least a decade now the 'creative city' label has been used in some cases as an aspiration and in others as a brand, an unquestioned byword for enhanced urban competitiveness and boosted attraction factors. Following the global financial meltdown, cities more than ever need inspiration and forward-looking thinking. This is why we welcome the start of a frank and open debate about both the positives and the negatives of the 'creative city' approach. Here is an article on this subject published by Lia Ghilardi in the Czech architecture magazine ERA 21 in August 2009.

C. Landry: Creativity @ The Crossroads

Centre for Cities: Get Real with the Creative City

C. Leadbeater: The Completely Creative City

A. Pratt: Creative cities – the cultural industries and the creative class

GJ. Hospers and CJ.Pen: A View on Creative Cities beyond the Hype

O. Mould: Ranking Creative Cities: an exercise in futility?

M. Nathan: The Wrong Stuff

J. Peck: The creativity fix

Swedish Municipal Cultural Planning

Cultural Planning is now firmly embedded in both policy and practice in Sweden. For those who can read Swedish, here is a very useful Handbook compiled by the Cultural Planning Network together with the Association of Swedish Municipalities. To get the Handbook please go to: www.sklkommentus.se

URBACT Report

The report Cities Facing the Crisis was launched at the Annual Conference of the EU programme URBACT held in Liege at the beginning of December. The video featured here summarises the findings of the report and presents the key issues debated during two days of intense discussion and exchange.


URBACT cities facing the crisis (Part 1)
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