home > programme > break out session 8
Creative Cities
March 17 15:00 - 16:30 - ConcertzaalSpeakers: Charles Landry and Zainab Bawa (Bombay); Moderator: Roy van Dalm (Richard Florida Creativity Group)
What makes Cities Creative? Zainab Bawa a urban anthropologist from Bombay associated with the Sarai New Media initiative in New Delhi will respond to Charles Landry's keynote, contrasting his concepts and ideas with her observations of everyday creativity the rapidly growing Indian city of Mumbai (formerly Bombay).
While more than 50% of its population live in slums, the City Government of Mumbai has formulated the ambition to turn Mumbai into a 'World Class City' by the year 2020. Are there structural similarities between Mumbai's ambition to reinvent itself as a world class city and the ongoing repositioning of mayor European cities as creative cities? To what extend can the character of a city be transformed according to government agendas? And what specific characteristics of cities trigger creative behaviour of their inhabitants. These questions will be addressed in a dialogue between Charles Landry and Zainab Bawa. In the second part of this session, the public will be invited to join the discussion.
Zainab Bawa is currently staying at Waag Society for a research residency in order to get a first-hand impression of how a 'World Class City' looks like.
