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ECoC and global crisis
How the next cities prepare for the one crucial year, that may be gauged from the kind of activities they undertake. In the case of Maribor, they initiated a conference which included Franco Bianchini, known already for his early work together with Lia Ghilardi about creative cities. In his presentation he makes the interesting distinction between 'impact' as being distinct from 'importance' when seeking to evaluate the outcomes of a city having been for one year European Capital of Culture. Has culture become more important to the people of that city after this one year? This can be a crucial question and which differs from usual cultural impact assessments in terms of job creation, influx of tourists, income raised in various fields, including conference tourism etc.
When considering such contributions to the overall debate as to what is happening within the ECoC as an institution, then the crisis is not merely of a global or local but of a European nature. Thus it might help what crucial difference it makes to have this kind of project going on by now since 1985 with ever more actors joining in, and in particular consultants like Tom Fleming who cover the general trend of bringing together culture, creativity and knowledge economy and who see in both culture and creativity similar to other theoreticians like Richard Florida a factor of social and economic development.
Following announcement about the conference could be found on the website of the British Council known to promote British experts and British services as part of the UK strategy in both foreign and economic policy related matters:
"As the global economic and financial crisis bites, European Capitals of Culture (ECOC) are faced with new challenges. The conference in Maribor focused on the effects of the global crisis on the European Capitals of Culture, the importance of investments in creative industries, the development of cultural tourism, and sustainable city development. Peter Tomaž Dobrila provided a short outline of Maribor ECOC 2012 project and the above-mentioned topical issues were tackled by Tom Fleming, Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy, Carlos Martins, Guimarães - European Capital of Culture 2012, Franco Bianchini, advisor and researcher on urban cultural policy for various organisations, including the Arts Council England, the Council of Europe and the European Commission."
The conference was co-organised by Municipality of Maribor and Magdalena Association.
The papers of the main contributors can be downloaded from that website.
Source:
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