Creatief Zwolle, stad in transitie

De barokke bovenzaal van brasserie De Harmonie in Zwolle was meer dan vol afgelopen vrijdag. Wat heb je dan een geweldig werk als je daar voor meer dan 100 mensen mag spreken over wat jou inspireert in steden. En dat samen met wethouder van cultuur Nelleke Vedelaar - een inspirerende vernieuwer met frisse ideeën. Waarom heeft Arnhem nooit zulke wethouders?
Het creatieve cafe was georganiseerd door KIZ Zwolle, het platform voor de creatieve stad. Wie is Zwolle eigenlijk als creatieve stad? Mijn gevoel na de levendige discussie met de zaal was dat Zwolle in transitie is. Aan de ene kant heeft de stad nog steeds haar Calvinistische doe-maar-gewoon DNA. Aan de andere kant zijn er zoveel initiatieven dat het gewoon wachten is op een doorbraak.
'Zwolle wordt nooit Amsterdam', riep een man op de tweede rij. Nee, dat klopt en dat moet je ook niet willen. Zwolle wordt geen Amsterdam omdat Zwolle Zwolle is. Waardeer wat er is en vernieuw vanuit het goede dat er is.
Het beste dat Zwolle kan doen is vrije ruimte creëren: fysieke ruimtes waar je functies kan mengen, ruimte voor nieuwe ideeën, regelruimte in agenda's, beleidsruimte in beleid.
Ik moet altijd denken aan wat Charles Landry zegt: een creatieve stad is een stad waar mensen kunnen denken, plannen en handelen met verbeeldingskracht. Ik pleit voor vrije ruimte voor verbeeldingskracht in Zwolle. Overal. Van het gemeentehuis tot de inrichting van kantoren. En Zwolle heeft KIZ en Nelleke en daar geloof ik in.

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.

Sshh, don't mention the population crash

I met Fred Pearce, author of Peoplequake (Volksbeving in Dutch) yesterday in Utrecht, for an interview. For those who are not familiar with Pearce: he is one of Britain's leading environmental journalists and authors.

In Peoplequake he exams all aspects of demography. I interviewed him mainly on the future of European cities. There's a population crash coming towards us and we're pioneering it in Western Europe.

The fact that the whole global population will reach a tipping point about midcentury and go into a rapid decline isn't mentioned a lot in the media. Pearce tells me why: "Demographic researchers tend to hush it up. They say it would endanger their funding." The population crash is politically incorrect and even taboo as a topic.

As for Europe, Pearce says: "we will have to redesign the whole concept of cities and make them work for a shrinking, greying population."

The main reason for the continuous drop in fertility is the feminist revolution. Pearce: "Women can now choose between a career and children. Increasingly, espcially in countries like Italy and Germany, they go for their careers. Our main goal should be to complete the feminist revolution with adequate facilities that make it possible for women to combine career and children and an attitude that makes it possible that both partners share parents' responsibilities."

Fred Pearce compares the differences between Italy and the Nordic countries. "In Scandinavia these theings have been taken care of. Fertility in the Nordic countries is down only to 1.8 child. This allows for a gradual and copable decline in population. In Italy it's 1.3 child - a catastrophe. You can imagine what this will mean for the sustainability of cities in the long run."

Photo update Dresden

I've just created a series of photos of my recent trip to eastern Germany. I made a Dresden series first, on Flickr. Use the tag Baba Reizen. There's a lot more to this city than its magnificent baroque centre. Check it out.

Stalin built this city

The city of Eisenhüttenstadt ('steel factory city') in the eastern German state of Brandenburg is a strange anachronism. Stalin had it built in the early 50's for the blast furnace workers. A perfect workers' paradise in, well, Stalinist style.

There was no economic reason to have a blast furnace there other than to make a political statement. The furnace cannot run on the brown coal from the region - the cokes had (and have) to be imported from elsewhere. This makes Eisenhüttenstadt (or Stalinstadt as it was once called) a cathedral in the desert.

Ever since the wall is gone, the area is subject to the market economy. Out of the 56.000 inhabitants, only 30.000 remain. The others have gone to get a job somewhere in the west with some future perspective.

The old Stalinist blocks of flats have been restored in a wonderful way. The outside city rings of former soviet style flats are all being demolished and the people move closer to the old centre.

The future of Eisenhüttenstadt may well be that of a shrinking open air museum city, a relic of a different time and age. The city has an interesting museum of everyday GDR life and internet companies sell Ostalgia-products online to communist retro collectors around the world.

They may have been weird times to have lived in, but they make great stories. And out of great stories you could make a new living.