• Cultural Enterprise & the Arts
  • Creative Enterprise & Design
  • Cultural Enterprise & the Arts
  • Creative Enterprise & Design
CATALYST | Creative Enterprise Leadership logo
  • JOIN US
    • About Our Network
    • Pratt ACM | DM Programs
    • Community News
    • Stay Connected
  • CATALYST REVIEW
  • CASES
    • Making the Case
    • Case Studies
  • CONVERSATIONS
    • Conversations of Consequence
  • CATALYST JOURNEYS
  • COLLABORATIONS
    • Capstone Projects
  • JOIN US
    • About Our Network
    • Pratt ACM | DM Programs
    • Community News
    • Stay Connected
  • CATALYST REVIEW
  • CASES
    • Making the Case
    • Case Studies
  • CONVERSATIONS
    • Conversations of Consequence
  • CATALYST JOURNEYS
  • COLLABORATIONS
    • Capstone Projects

CATALYZING the Conversation: Creative Cities

Tweet

CATALYZING the Conversation: Creative Cities

Issue13-Creative Cities_Cover
By Dr. Mary McBride
Issue 13 Fall 2014

We are increasingly an urban planet. Our cities attract capital and talent, aggregate and organize activity and act as cultural and commercial hubs. But, our cities are also located on a larger planet, a biosphere upon which we citizens depend. If human beings are to thrive in dense urban spaces then these spaces will need to be generative. They will need to encourage human enterprise that can create both immediate and enduring value.

In this issue of Catalyst we explore the idea of Creative Cities as agents of radical re-imagination which can enable large numbers of people to live and work, profit and prosper together. Our contributors examine the degree to which increasing urbanization will reshape our relationship with our biosphere. They provide insight about how a city might organize its activities to minimize any negative impact on the planet. They suggest ways that we might organize our enterprise to encourage sociability, responsibility and delight. They offer examples of the impact of culture on a city’s ability to attract, retain and support creative enterprise.

Creative cities value the creative arts and use them to engage and stimulate community. Economic vitality and cultural vitality are necessary to each other. State sponsored A+E Districts have helped redefine Baltimore connecting community, culture, and commerce to increase the vitality of each. But, valuing the arts does not necessarily equate to valuing either equity or our environment. Sustained cultural and commercial vitality requires a cultivation of the relations between people and our shared world. Where socio-economic equity and environmental stewardship are not cultivated development is fragile.

Finally, cities must be home. And, they must be home to many and diverse energies. Those cities that feel like home encourage us to invest our hopes and talents, to create and to thrive-together.

Download as PDF
Purchase a printed copy
Browse articles online

TagsCreative CitiesMary McBride

Tweet
Previous Story

Designing Sustainability into Creative Economies: Triple Bottom Line by Design Plus Culture

Next Story

Designing Spaces for Health and Wellbeing

About the author

Dr. Mary McBride

Chair of Pratt Arts & Cultural Management and Pratt Design Management. Partner, Strategies for Planned Change, an international consulting group specializing in strategic leadership of creative industries; visiting professor international universities including Esade, Spain; Koc University, Turkey; ISG, France; European University, Russia; former director, Management Decision Lab, Stern School of Business, New York University. Mary McBride has spent her career researching, redesigning and refining the meaning of design and its potential to encourage positive change within organizations and the world at large. The stakes in the 21st century are high, corporations are most able to marshal the resources needed to implement global solutions and the in-house design team of the future must play a role in how those solutions are undertaken. Mary's model called The Triple Bottom Line by Design succinctly yet powerfully defines the opportunity for design and designers to innovate to improve their companies¹ profitability while creating sustainable environmentally sound products and services that truly benefit our society.

Related Posts

  • CATALYZING the Conversation: Designing Peace

    By Dr. Mary McBride
    CATALYZING the Conversation: Designing...
  • A Conversation with Paul Nagle, Executive Director of Cultural Strategies Initiative on the Role of the Artist in Fostering Resilient Cities

    By Belen Llera
    Artists play a crucial role in the...
  • CATALYZING the Conversation: Designing a New Economy

    By Dr. Mary McBride
    CATALYZING the Conversation: Designing a New...
logo
  • Cultural Enterprise & the Arts
  • Creative Enterprise & Design
Copyright 2021 | Catalyst | Creative Enterprise Leadership