UNESCO’s 19 Creative Cities and Their Relevance to Creative Nomads

UNESCO

In 2004, UNESCO launched the Cre­ative Cities Net­work, and has been build­ing on this ini­tia­tive ever since. But why is this some­thing that cre­ative loca­tion inde­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­als should be aware of?? Let me explain.

The pur­pose behind this inter­na­tional net­work of cre­ative cities is not just to pro­mote these cities as great cul­tural and cre­ative places to visit (which they all are, of course), but to encour­age these cities to cre­ate poli­cies and pro­grams aimed at devel­op­ing Cre­ative Entre­pre­neur­ship, Cre­ative Indus­tries, and Cre­ative Tourism. That is quite a task.

To be part of this Cre­ative Cities Net­work, cities must adhere to spe­cific poli­cies defined by UNESCO. One pol­icy that I found quite impres­sive was the following:

A key ingre­di­ent is the cre­ation of public/private part­ner­ships that help unlock the entre­pre­neur­ial and cre­ative poten­tial of small enter­prises, which play an impor­tant role in the new econ­omy. To under­pin their devel­op­ment, small cre­ative busi­nesses also need inno­v­a­tive tal­ent, and there­fore cities with strong con­tem­po­rary art, fash­ion, craft, music and design schools are most likely to flour­ish. The Cre­ative Cities Net­work

And here is where the rel­e­vance to cre­ative loca­tion inde­pen­dent pro­fes­sion­als kicks in. If you are look­ing for a city to visit and are inter­ested in find­ing a city that might:

• pro­vide you with cre­ative inspiration,
• recharge your cre­ativ­ity (see my ear­lier post on this topic),
• pro­vide you with some busi­ness con­tacts, part­ners and/or clients,

then you might want to have a look at the fol­low­ing list of cities. See if there is a city listed here that attracts your atten­tion or is work­ing to develop small cre­ative busi­nesses that are either based on your cre­ative tal­ents or are a great com­pli­ment to your talents.

At the moment, there are 19 cities that are part of UNESCO’s Cre­ative Cities Net­work, with at least 20 more cities cur­rently under consideration.

Cities that are already part of UNESCO’s Cre­ative Cities Net­work, listed by the cre­ative dis­ci­pline they excel at, are:

UNESCO Cities of Craft and Folk Art
Aswan, Egypt
Santa Fe, New Mex­ico, USA
Kanazawa, Japan

UNESCO Cities of Design
Berlin, Ger­many
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mon­treal, Canada
Nagoya, Japan
Kobe, Japan
Shen­zhen, China

UNESCO City of Film
Brad­ford, UK

UNESCO City of Gas­tron­omy
Popayan, Colom­bia

UNESCO Cities of Lit­er­a­ture
Edin­burgh, UK
Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia
Iowa City, USA

UNESCO Cities of Music
Bologna, Italy
Seville, Spain
Glas­gow, UK
Ghent, Belgium

UNESCO City of Media Arts
Lyon, France

The cities above that are in red, are linked to UNESCO pages that have infor­ma­tion about the city and the efforts being made to ful­fill the city’s oblig­a­tions in this program.

TTFN

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