The true test of walkability I think is this: Can you spend a pleasant half hour walking or on transit and end up at a variety of great places? The quality of having a feast of options available when you walk out your front door is what I’m starting to think of as “deep walkability.” Deep walkability ought to be the top priority driving urban design and development in our communities. We ought to be looking at how to knit our walkable communities together and how to make friendlier the unwalkable streets between them.

A clustered firm is defined as one whose average distance to its 10 nearest neighbours (in its sector) is less than 100 metres. Mapping the clustered firms shows where the clustering in a sector is taking place. Basically this map removes all non-clustered firms from the first map to eliminate offices that are widely dispersed across London (e.g. in the case of the banking sector, the local retail banks are removed). These maps also indicate the varying degree of clustering between sectors. This is also indicated by the proportion of offices in a sector that are clustered. This is found to be closely related to the total number of offices in a sector: a cluster index for each sector is computed as a residual from regressing proportion of clustered offices against total number of offices. This index measure how much a sector is over- or under-clustered: figures are given with the maps. For instance, Insurance, Banks and Recruitment show a strong propensity to be in clusters, while Charities, Information Technology and Business Support are characteristically more dispersed.

The Edge, part of the State Library of Queensland at the Cultural Centre is a place for experimentation and creativity, giving contemporary tools to young people to allow them to explore critical ideas, green initiatives, new design practices and media making. Informal spaces abound for discussion and the pursuit of individual and group activities, which foster a sense of community, a commitment to collaboration and a spirit of openness. Local and international residency opportunities bring specialists (catalysts) to The Edge to weave networks and stimulate the creative practice and productivity that takes place within and beyond the building. Inspiring workshops and forums for ideas exchange, led by catalysts and emerging practitioners and researchers are the core of The Edge program, and support all levels of engagement.

As Kate Oakley notes, initiatives that try to manufacture creative hubs have been less successful than those that consolidate existing creative activity. Manufacturing a successful creative sector from scratch is an almost impossible process – creativity is not generated, it emerges. The creative sector has an economic model where value is not tied closely to human-hours of labour, but depends upon being valued in the eye of the beholder. Value is created after the inputs of production, and as the saying about Hollywood films goes, ‘nobody knows anything’ about what will succeed in advance. Taste-makers with an eye for talent and access to capital connect to both young creatives and the businesses that provide an interface to their work (galleries, etc.). Until those relationships emerge, there is not yet a ‘creative economy’ to be supported. But providing a welcoming environment for A-list taste-makers – always on the move with the leading edge – is no straightforward proposition.

Wintec’s Centre for Creative Industries aims to support the cultural and economic development of the region through innovation projects for the creative industries sector. Originally established as a research centre in 2003, this newly-focused innovation centre is now developing major strategic projects that will have wider economic and cultural benefit, in line with the New Zealand Tertiary Education Council’s core aim of developing a “high income, knowledge-based economy, which is both innovative and creative, and provides a unique quality of life to all New Zealanders” (TES 2007-12, p8). By nurturing strong functional relationships with the creative industries sector, the community, industry and government bodies, the centre aims to develop new creative innovation projects for Wintec, industry and wider communities in the Waikato region in order to foster economic and cultural growth in our growing knowledge economy.

Today, that empire centers on one of the most innovative and environmentally sustainable factories in Bali. The factory walls, made of recyclable mud brick, are topped with thorny bougainvillea, rather than razor wire. John Hardy calls them a “sustainable solution to the international problem of security.” Workshop roofs are covered with creeping passion-fruit vines to insulate the interiors from the brutal equatorial sun. Their fruit makes for a handy snack. Lotus ponds punctuate factory floors. “If the fish die,” says Hardy, “we know something is wrong.” The compound is designed to be light on the ground. If the Hardys closed shop, the whole area could be back to rice paddies in three months’ time.

Based on our editorial experience in our print magazine The Home www.thehome-bg.com, we know how hard it is a young designer or an architect to be noticed – be it by a producer, by an architectural studio, by the public or the press. We know how vitally it is to get some support when you are in the beginning. With the Next Creative Generation project DeZona aims to become the mediator between the young creative people and those who are able to turn their ideas into reality. If you think you are part of this generation, feel free to join us!
The Next Creative Generation is an open-end project and is constantly updated. It is released as a new section on DeZona’s homepage, which contains portfolios in two categories – “Product Design” and “Architecture & Interior Design”. Each portfolio contains general information about the designer/architect, contact details and 6 images of his/her products/projects accompanied with short descriptions of the works.

As governments around the world begin to recognize the contribution of creative industries to economic growth and employment, there has been a growth in statistics and mapping exercises in order to give public officials the information they need to create targeted public policies to support the sector.

Prepared by the Global Alliance team in February 2006, this article explores the importance of cultural statistics and UNESCO’s role in developing standard methodologies that countries can adopt and adapt.