Working in Brno

I'm in my hotelroom in Hotel Bila Ruz in Brno, going over my notes for the speech at Future Cities Forum today. Met Monika last night and she had great news: the fantastic art deco Scheibler powerstation in Lodz will get UNESCO world heritage status. At last! If ever you could see a miracle place - it is this cathedral of steam. And Monika, Kris from the Lodz Art Center and Agnieszka Wlazel from River Cities, Warsaw, will be getting together in september for as conference on creative cities development.

World Talent Forum in Pamplona

I've just arrived in Pamplona, Spain. It's 5 degrees and pouring. The Maisonnave hotel in the old city is on one of the narrow streets where they run the bulls during the St. Fermin festival in July. But now it's wet and quiet except for my neighbour's noisy television. Tomorrow the Agora Talentia (www.agoratalentia.es) will start, the word's first global forum on talent in the creative age. Just had a fabulous tapas dinner with Ann and Paul from the Lisbon Council and speakers from all over the world. We talked on the war on talent in times of crisis. Yes, sure: that war is over; in the sense that talent won. But will young talent get a chance to change Europe as it is? How can cities thrive in these times? We sat in a circle and had tapas the way Hemingway had, as he was a regular at the Josetxo (www.restaurantejosetxo.com). Sam from Massachusetts talked about 'the dark side of meritocracy.' Our cities are full of very eager people and creativity is a great thing, but when it comes to banking and accountancy: please be reliable and dull. So, what do you think? Will the crisis bring about a counter-globalisation thing? Like, all banks becoming nationalized an regionalized. Like, people lending money to eachother. And in an eco way: selfsustaining energy regions that produce their own energy, supply it to a regional power staion that distributes it back? And talking about food and food miles: will we rely on small circles of regional production that reduce transport? If that is so, the city and the region will become even more important. Not only as a nucleus of economic activities and talent magnet, but a selfsupportive City State 2.0.