In his address to the Yaroslavl Global Policy Forum earlier this month, President Medvedev emphasized that Russia’s multinational and multiethnic makeup is a creative asset. My research into London’s creative industries leads me to fully agree, and this goal to unlock the potential of Russia’s diversity is a move that deserves a warm welcome.
Indeed, Deputy Mayor of London Richard Barnes told the Global Policy Forum that the UK capital’s status as a ‘world in one city’ is the secret ingredient of its commercial success and global role. Similarly, the writings of creative industry researcher Richard Florida point to the importance of diversity in the modern megacity as the force which drives creativity.
The facts show that diversity is critical to economic success in the modern world. These same hard facts show that many human requirements, that governments are treating as costs or luxuries, are fast becoming economic necessities – such as education, the built environment and social care.
These same hard facts show that many human needs, which governments are ignorantly treating as costs or luxuries, are becoming economic necessities - such as education, the built environment and social care.
Creativity, the most fundamentally human capacity, has become the principal productive resource of our age. It is the foundation of a new paradigm of production. In the next phase of economic history, the winners will be the countries, cities and peoples that grasp this.
This is why China, for example, is laying the groundwork to become the world’s leading creative economy, leapfrogging the West, and not just to supply it with ‘cheap products,’ but with high-value-added products. Employment in manufacturing there has in fact fallen for the past 20 years, whilst employment in services will soon surpass agriculture.
The assets of the top six design media and entertainment conglomerates now amount to more than those of Exxon, one of the biggest companies in the world. These companies do not make or sell things, but rather entertainment, news and style: customized and tailored services.
This is the foundation of a creative economy.
Many speakers at the Global Policy Forum noted that economic success needs industries with increasing returns, high value added and high productivity growth. And it is service sector productivity that holds the key to future success. But for this we must invest in people and the environment they work in – that is, cities.
Old thinking leads us to think of production as being mechanical, but for the services industry the emphasis is on people – scientists, technicians, software geeks, designers, artists. So diversity, human welfare urban infrastructure, well-being and education provide the resources of the future.
Old thinking is wrong on this too: regarding environmental spending as a cost, a luxury, something we have to do without when times are hard. This is economically senseless. People, and cities, are a productive resource.
The last word on this has to go, appropriately, to an architect – Buckminster Fuller: the best way to predict the future is to design it. Russia, the most multinational country in the world, has become a sleeping giant. Moscow has an ethnic and cultural diversity that very few cities have achieved – perhaps only London, Toronto, New York and Singapore. Great gateway cities like Berlin and Vienna aspire to it, and China positively thirsts for it. I agree with President Medvedev – it is time to unleash it.
Alan Freeman is a cultural economist, who previously worked in the economic unit of the Mayor of London. He has since moved to Winnipeg where he writes, publishes, and continues to research the cultural and creative industries.
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