This ‘Urgency and the transformative imperative’ discussion document has its origins in the autumn 2021 METREX conference in Riga where Central and Western European strategic planners took part. Subsequently it was decided to explore through an interview series ‘what can we learn from Central Europe’ and following on from that ‘what can we learn from each other’. Given the richness of these feedbacks it became clear that there was a bigger agenda, namely: ‘how can we re-direct our strategies for creating a different type of city in tune with the global agendas of our times?’.
The document is made of two parts. The first shorter part highlights mutual learning experiences and the second, longer one, seeks to encapsulate the newer thinking about cities and the priorities of future city-making always with an eye to the metro perspective. This concentrates on the urgencies facing all cities and the need to transform. This summary stands back and seeks to draw out the complex drivers that motivate people and organisations to change. These happen at different levels and are triggered in differing ways. It is presented rather like a multi-step agenda for action.
Author
Charles Landry is an international authority on the use of imagination and creativity in urban change. He is currently a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. He invented the concept of the Creative City in the late 1980’s. Its focus is how cities can create the enabling conditions for people and organisations to think, plan and act with imagination to solve problems and develop opportunities. The notion has become a global movement and changed the way cities thought about their capabilities and resources. www.charleslandry.com/
Cover Photo Riga
by Jānis Beitiņš on Unsplash
