Important article in the Guardian here, advocating a new imaginary on cities, by

Ewald Engelen, Sukhdev Johal, Angelo Salento and Karel Williams.

The article provides a provocative, re-evaluation of Jacobs and Raban, but also of Glaeser, Florida, and Sassen.

Is the city of the “creative class” about culture, or is really about keeping the middle class in?

Several of the insights presented shed light on current developments in my home city, with relevance for similar international projects: Guggenheim Helsinki, but also the complex waterfront development I’m currently working on.

Favorite quote:

“Increasingly, the dreams of urban prosperity through competition have served to legitimate hugely costly – and publicly subsidised – spatial urban interventions in prestige redevelopment. Real-estate investments to keep the upper-middle classes in the city, to accommodate a growing army of international students and young service workers, to attract major corporates and financial service providers to business parks, to persuade the hypermobile cosmopolitan ‘creative class’ to nest locally.”