Creative Cities Initiative Launched at MaRS

This summer, MaRS hosted the launch of the Strategies for Creative Cities report. The Creative Cities Leadership Team, including MaRS’ CEO Dr. Ilse Treurnicht, aimed to develop strategies to cultivate the arts and creative industries and maximize their economic and social potential in cities.

As Professor Meric Gertler, an economic geographer and Co-Director of the Program on Globalization and Regional Innovation Systems (PROGRIS) at the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies, and Project Director for this initiative, so aptly stated:  “Creativity means business. Creativity has become the ultimate economic resource, adding a new dimension to the competitive potential of cities around the world”. 

After an examination of the best practices of some of the world’s leading urban centres, including New York,  San Francisco, London, Barcelona and Berlin, the Leadership Team produced a report outlining their learnings. Drawing from four main themes, the report highlights the need to employ a community-based model for building creative hubs, and create a specialized network of skills, structures and capital to support creative industries and communities. Crucial to the development of these communities is the availability of space and infrastructure.  To truly cultivate creative economies, there needs to be a platform where creative projects and people can intersect.  In this regard, the MaRS Centre and MaRS Discovery District project were often looked to as a model that uses a physical site focused on convergence to facilitate interactions between otherwise seemingly disparate communities.

The momentum created by the Creative Cities project has already lead to an effort to work on implementing the recommendations of the task force.  For more information on the Strategies for a Creative City initiative and to download the full report, visit: www.imagineatoronto.ca.

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