2. Having written about this last week, I don't disagree wholly with David Olive's comments. I, too, found the report parochial, strikingly unambitious, and short on implementation. I wasn't sure that the document (and the case study that goes along with it) fully addressed the questions each began with: "What makes a creative city? How does Toronto stack up? How can Toronto take its place among the world's great creative cities?" (from the Imagine A Toronto ... document) and "What ‘levers’ can be employed to nurture and grow the creative economy and a city’s creative assets, and to make a city a creative/cultural centre?" and "How can the value of a city’s creative/cultural assets be maximized for the purposes of regional economic development and social inclusion?". I do agree that those are good places to start. My worry is that Toronto remains so preoccupied with showing itself to be a "world class" city that it overlooks its many existing assets -- in this case its cultural ones. I'm curious how the new Toronto Festival of Arts, Culture and Creativity (to inagurate in June 2007; there's a press conference this afternoon at the Distillery District) will intersect with or implement some of the Imagine a Toronto ... report's recommendations. I'll be writing a little about that here tomorrow. But what would I like to see? * Acknowledgement that Toronto already has many 'grassroots' cultural organizations that do much to advance the city's culture. These organizations could be better funded and promoted more widely. I am thinking here of organizations as diverse as [murmur], The Scream Literary Festival, the Toronto Public Space Committee, even the city's larger weblogs. * Tap into the city's cultural diversity. The city supports Caribana and Pride because they see a direct financial return. But what about the various Chinatowns, little India/Italy/Portugal districts -- these places could be major tourist attractions, if the City focused on promoting them rather than ticketing little old ladies for setting up fruit stands on the sidewalk. * Find a way to unify the city's many existing cultural festivals -- Harbourfront's International Festival of Authors, Word on the Street, The Scream, Dream in High Park, The International Film Festival, Caribana, Pride, etc. into a single calendar. Rather than inventing new 'festivals' which seem false and overly sponsored (I'm thinking of the Winterlicious and Summerlicious events but also First Night), the City could profit from publicizing its existing festivals. Take a page from the books of private corporations who attach their name to festivals in exchange for sponsorship. * And speaking of sponsorship, rather than maintaining a guarded relationship with the city's cultural players (e.g., the Mirvishes), the city could work more aggressively with them to promote local productions. * There's also much we as private citizens can do. We could consume local culture, for example -- read books written by local authors, see more local theatre, and promote it when we're out of the city. The point here is that many of these cultural events and connections don't need to be invented. They already exist: what they really need is recognition.
   
   Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  {comment_date format=’%m/%d’}  at  {comment_date format=’%h:%i %A’}
Posted by Amy Lavender Harris  on  07/31  at  10:48 AM

3. First thought: Bravo David Olive for calling attention to the ?Ideas Deficit Syndrome? that has our leaders in its grip.

   Second thought: David Olive would not recognize a ?big idea? if it smacked him upside the head.

   I mean, the Gardiner Expressway Front Street Extension? C’mon. Is Olive out there with Hitler and Baron Haussmann or what? Has he ever met a road he didn’t like?

   He wants big ideas, we have one for him.

   See our version of the truth at http://allderdice.ca/?p=147

   Posted by jacob allderdice  on  08/02  at  05:26 PM

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