Last Friday I attended the City Centre Vision Conference at Clarence Dock, Leeds. I had immediate thoughts and ideas in my mind on Friday, but wanted to wait and think about what I wanted to post. Usually I will either post my immediate reaction or not post at all on these kind of events, so as to avoid debates about things I can not effect, but here goes...
The day featured key speakers from various sectors and backgrounds. Some of the speakers I found passionate and interesting but others seemed nervous with the upcoming spending review always in their thoughts. I personally think that although the current financial situation is going to hurt in the short term, it provides the perfect chance to 'rip up and start again' in certain areas. It also means that in my specialist area: international projects and collaborations, there will be smaller, more targeted campaigns and this is how we love to work anyway.
The Speakers
We heard interesting comments from the two most influential figures at the council: Tom Riordan and Keith Wakefield, the two seemed genuinely interested in improving the city and protecting frontline services under threat from the spending review. Sir Richard Needham spoke a lot about his time in Northern Ireland and Italy, and although sailing close to the edge with a couple of comments, seemed to entertain the crowd. I did not personally take much from the talk, perhaps because many of the stories were from before my time :s
Gerald Jennings from Land Securities spoke about the new Trinity scheme currently under construction on Briggate (he also gave me a 'shout out' in his speech, which was nice!) I have spoken with Land Securities about Trinity on a number of occasions and retain my belief that the project has a long-term, strategic plan that is routed in deep research of Leeds and it's people.
Sally Anne Greenfield spoke about some of the work the Leeds Community Foundation undertakes and spoke with true passion.
Creative Cities
After lunch we heard from Evert Verhagen. I felt very much on the same wavelength as Evert. So much of what he said, I have been saying behind closed doors and during meetings in the past 12 months. It was interesting that, in my opinion, the most 'real' comments came from someone who has travelled and has an international perspective on things.
Sometimes it takes some time away from a city to truly appreciate it. It allows you to get a real feel for it's international standing and reputation. By being away you miss things and remember things you did not appreciate while living there. Also you can see the comparison between your city and the others you live in. I certainly found this when living in Barcelona. Some things in Leeds are fantastic, others need work, but this is the same in any city, let us not kid ourselves that everywhere else is great and Leeds is bad.
The thing that most interested me about the talk from Evert was when he spoke about the talent within a city and how that becomes your most valuable commodity. It must have hurt a few people in the room, when he suggested that the best creative people in Leeds may be thinking about the quickest way to get to London for the best opportunities. Of course there are exceptions, but this statement is certainly true for a lot of my peers.
Evert spoke a lot about how the world is now all about cities. We looked at various charts of the ‘best’ cities in the world, the obvious candidates were at the top: London, New York and Tokyo, but there were others on the list that really intrigued me. Copenhagen, Taipei and obviously Barcelona are cities that I know well and I think show what is possible by putting the talent at the forefront of a strategy and creating a culture and structure that facilitates innovation rather then stifles or modifies through outdated measurement tools and processes.
From a personal point of view, I did notice the trend when graduating from the European Institute of Design only last year. Here was a class of around 150 fresh new creative talents who were looking to hit the world’s most interesting cities and begin/continue their careers. Some ended up in London and New York, but others chose other interesting cities: Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin, Sydney, Milan and others stayed in Barcelona. I would of loved to have suggested to some of these people that Leeds was a place to consider as a first stop after Barca, but unfortunately we do not have the right things in place to position ourselves on this list.
I made improving the city in this area and attracting the top talent and building that creative, innovative community my main priority after graduating. I graduated top of the class so could of gone to another city and easily done some of the projects I have had to fight tooth and nail to get off the ground in Leeds. I do it though, because I love this city and always find more reward in creating something new rather then joining something that is already underway and doing well.
Workshops
Back to the conference and next up during the afternoon session was a series of ‘workshops’ where you could speak with fellow delegates about a certain subject. I had chosen ‘innovation’ before the event and found myself on a table with some interesting people. It seems innovation can mean different things to different people but overall I had the sense that we were all ‘kind of’ agreeing on what innovation was. We spoke about how in order to encourage or facilitate innovation the right conditions must be in place. I explained my ideas for creating a central hub or group where perhaps the seeds of a creative, trends-driven community could grow, but sitting in a room consisting mainly of council members and property developers my advice of ‘prepare to fail’ and ‘take risks’ did not seem to sit too easy.
Final Thoughts
Overall I enjoyed the conference, it is always good to gain an insight into what other people in the city are thinking. Wether I agree or not with what was being said is not the most important thing, everyone in city has an ‘angle’ or area they are coming from so of course there are going to be disagreements. I know the area I am interested improving/creating in Leeds and have a really clear idea of how we can begin to do it, maybe by attending events like the one on Friday, I can get an even clearer understanding of what everyone else in the city wants and see if my vision fits into that or not.