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2013/2014  KAN-SOC_VFEC  Cities and Creativity: Exploring the entrepreneurial city

English Title
Cities and Creativity: Exploring the entrepreneurial city

Course information
Language English
Exam ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Elective
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Quarter
Course period First Quarter
Changes in course schedule may occur.
Tuesday 13.30-17.00, week 37-43.
Tuesday 13.30-15.10, week 36.
Time Table Please see course schedule at e-Campus
Min. participants 45
Study board
Study Board for MSc of Social Science
Course coordinator
  • Timon Beyes - MPP
Administrative contact: Karina Ravn Nielsen, 3815 3782, electives.lpf@cbs.dk
Main academic disciplines
  • Innovation and entrepreneurship
  • Organization
  • Methodology
Last updated on 18-03-2013
Learning objectives
  • Analyze and interpret contemporary urban transformation and its effects
  • Identify and reflect upon concrete manifestations of entrepreneurship in so-called creative cities (such as Copenhagen)
  • Apply creative and performative methods of exploring and intervening into urban life
  • Link theories and concepts to the empirical case
Examination
Cities and Creativity: Exploring the entrepreneurial city:
Examination form Oral exam based on written product

In order to participate in the oral exam, the written product must be handed in before the oral exam; by the set deadline. The grade is based on an overall assessment of the written product and the individual oral performance.
Individual or group exam Group exam, max. 4 students in the group
Mini-Project (group written product) and group oral exam.
If the project is written individually the paper must be of max. 10 pages.
Size of written product Max. 20 pages
Assignment type Project
Duration
Written product to be submitted on specified date and time.
20 min. per student, including examiners' discussion of grade, and informing plus explaining the grade
Grading scale 7-step scale
Examiner(s) Internal examiner and second internal examiner
Exam period Autumn Term
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
Course content and structure
While great cities have always been places of creativity, innovation and emancipation, in contemporary post-industrial cities the ‘knot’ of cities, creativity and entrepreneurship has become a master discourse. Consider the stories and images of, for instance, Berlin, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Manchester and related “Creative Cities”.  What seems to constitute a major shift is the sheer importance of urban cultural vitality, of sensual atmospheres and spectacle, of cultural consumption and of the image of the creative city. In this sense, these days at least Western cities seem to be observed, portrayed and discussed more in terms of their cultural value than, traditionally, for instance their industrial or political value.
This development is mirrored in urban politics and design. Broadly put, the ‘functional city’ was the paradigm of city development into the 1970s, with industry, administration and functional organization as leitmotifs. With the advent of deindustrialisation and the rise of the so-called postfordist economy, we have seen a wide-ranging culturalisation of urban development, with culture, creativity and entrepreneurship as leitmotifs. Again broadly put, one could argue that the functional city equals the managerial city, while the creative city equals the entrepreneurial city. Accordingly, creating creative cities and attracting the “creative class” is presented as the major task for today’s urban designers and developers.
But can you plan, control and domesticate creativity? After all, it is ‘on the ground’, for instance in the streets and squares of Copenhagen, where creativity plays out. To look for creativity and urban entrepreneurship, we need to explore where the conceived space of planners, architect and designers meets the spatial routines of living and working in the city, and where this conceived space and these spatial routines meet the ‘lived space’ of experimental and embodied use and appropriation. How are cities used and used differently? How are urban spaces appropriated and reorganized? How are urban practices performed and transformed?
In this course, the city will therefore be looked at as a ‘potential space’ with surprising possibilities and perpetual uncertainties where creativity and entrepreneurship become realized. We will inquire how the ordering and organization of urban life is continuously forged and challenged and where new possibilities for work, citizenship and lifestyle emerge. Students are asked to engage with the relevant theories, concepts and opinions of urban creativity and entrepreneurship; and they are challenged to venture out into the city and encounter and study the everyday urban mess themselves, enacting stories of Copenhagen as a potential city.
Teaching methods
The course will consist of (brief) input lectures, text-based discussions (seminars), methodological trainings (workshop) and the students’ hands-on explorations (fieldwork).
Expected literature
Amin, A. and N. Thrift (2002) Cities: Reimagining the Urban. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
 
Beyes, T. (2012) ‘Organizing the Entrepreneurial City’, in D. Hjorth (ed.) Handbook on Organisational Entrepreneurship (pp. 320-337). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
 
Beyes, T., Krempl, S.-T.and A. Deuflhard (eds.) 2009 Parcitypate:Art and Urban Space. Zurich: Niggli.
 
Cronin, M. and K. Hetherington (eds.) Consuming the Entrepreneurial City: Image, Memory, Spectacle. London: Routledge.
 
Evans, G. (2009) ‘Creative Cities, Creative Spaces and Urban Policy’, Urban Studies 46(5&6): 1003-1040.
 
Florida, R. (2002) The Rise of the Creative Class.Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.
 
 
Harvey, D. (1989) ‘From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism’, Geografiska Annaler B 71(1): 3-17.
 
Lefebvre, H. (1996) ‘Right to the City’, in E. Kofman and E. Lebas (eds.)Henri Lefebvre: Writings on Cities (pp. 63-184). Oxford: Blackwell.
 
Pratt, A. C. (2008) ‘Creative cities: the cultural industries and the creative class’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 90(2): 107-117.
 
Zukin, S. (1995) The Culture of Cities. Oxford: Blackwell.
 
Last updated on 18-03-2013