Rethinking urban creativity: Lessons from Barcelona and Montreal

Creativity in a city requires that new knowledge and innovative ideas transit permanently through three different layers of the city: the underground, the middleground and the upperground. The underground is comprised of creative individuals who are not immediately linked to the commercial and industrial world and whose culture lies outside the corporate logic of standardization. The upperground is the level of formal institutions or firms, whose specific role is to bring creative ideas to the market. The middleground is the level where the work of collectives and communities enables the necessary knowledge transmission that precedes innovation. Successful creative areas in cities are loci where the middleground plays a key role for the city as an important element of cultural creativity. When the middleground has not yet formed or has been neglected, major obstacles limit the emergence of creativity. To illustrate this viewpoint, we study and compare two specific districts in the cities of Barcelona and Montreal, to pinpoint and analyze the presence or absence of a rich middleground, to assess its critical role and to examine the practical measures that can be taken to rethink creativity in these urban environments.

► Creativity in a city requires that new knowledge and innovative ideas transit permanently through three different layers of the city: the underground, the middleground and the upperground. ► The underground is comprised of creative individuals who are not immediately linked to the commercial and industrial world. The upperground is the level of formal institutions or firms whose specific role is to bring creative ideas to the market. ► The middleground is the level where the work of collectives and communities enables the necessary knowledge transmission that precedes innovation.