People and Passion, not bricks

Earlier this week I was at the farewell party of Liesbeth Jansen, director of The Westergasfabriek (http://westergasfabriek.nl) in Amsterdam. In 18 years Liesbeth turned this 19th century, red brick former gasworks site into the cultural place to be. And this was an area of Amsterdam no one in his right mind would want to go to.

Why did this work, when so many other sites are just buildings with creatives where nothing else happens? Or where you feel you are left out, because you're not cool enough. As far as Liesbeht's concerned, it's focusing on the right people, on passion and always on the content and not on the bricks. "I prefer to work with the people who are madly in love with this place. Because it is their passion that made the Westergasfabriek a success." Temporariness is also a big thing: content moves on - it is there and then it's gone. Movement and change is everyhting. From circus shows for kids, big events for the tech savvy media crowd, low and high culture, creative industries and picnics for the people living in the neighbourhood.

Organize where the passion is and trust people. Letting go of masterplanning and developing as it goes along. Liesbeth knwos it, Jane Jacobs knew it: but who dares?

Why do cities recover so fast (or not at all?)

Business Insider ranks the world's Top 15 of losing cities because of the recession. And the World Top 15 of fast recoveries. Take Istanbul. They were #44 (in growth) before the recession. They sank to #143 during the recession. And now they are the world's #1 in recovery after the recession. Why? Local employment is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, Business Insider says. Most Chinese cities rose, fell and rose again somehwere in the World Top 10. But Istanbul shows incredible resillience. Turkey has a young population, Turks are entrepreneurial, these things would probably matter. But what makes this city work is what most interests me. Should get hold of the report.