CREATIVE CITIES: AN AGENDA OR A CARGO CULT

Infographics: Olena Zublewich

The city is a hub for a variety of creative initiatives. There are no completely creative cities: you can go to Berlin, Amsterdam or London, but it would be wrong to say that these are places where everyone lives and breathes with creativity, consumes it for breakfast together with oatmeal. It is sprayed around there, you need to look for it to find it. Therefore, it is better to talk about creativity for the city and in the city.

Creativity is about solving a problem, and you have to see it first. What are the challenges of Ukrainian cities today?

Demographic crisis – 9 million Ukrainians are constantly working outside of Ukraine, 2 million of them have already severed their links with the country, and cities can feel it in the first place;
Slow modernization of urban economics;
Obsolete housing stock — even the newest Ukrainian city Slavutych, has worn out housing stock, which is already moribund;
Deteriorated infrastructure;
“Urban sprawl” -chaotic development, it becomes difficult to see the boundaries of the city;
Low mobility of the population within the country – when people do not travel within the country, their imagination suffers significantly. This affects what products are consumed by urban dwellers, what queries they have, what atmosphere is there in general, the “mood” in the city. There is joke that the shortest way to Chernivtsi from Odessa is through Moldova. This is also about infrastructure;
Lack of modern transport strategy;
Unallocated land;
Low level of involvement of residents in protest movements is also one of the interrelated things. When there is little involvement, then there are either spontaneous protests or revolutions “on a turn-key basis”;
Outdated approach to the development of urban planning documentation;
The densification in the historic centers;
The problem of preservation of cultural heritage in cities.