I've been hearing a lot about London’s unemployment rate, mainly that it’s the highest of any large Canadian city. A recent London Free Press article asked: Why London? I’ve personally been polling friends and family and no one seems to have a clear answer, even less when I ask what can be done about it.
There are many wise and intelligent people working hard to develop London’s economy. This great video is a testament to that. It beautifully shows different successful companies that are based London, Canada with a Wild Domestic song in the background. If its objective was to make me feel proud to be Made in London, Canada, it has certainly succeeded. However, the extent to which the video and the strategies it represents are successfully stimulating London’s economy is perhaps in need of reconsideration, considering our current situation.
It kind of reminds me of one of those kids who tried to get new friends by telling them lots of stories about all these other friends they have. “Oh my gosh, did I ever tell you about my friend John? We made this tree house once, it was so much fun!” I always found those kids hard to play with. When it came time to build our own tree house, they just kept on talking about their friend John and the tree house they built last summer. “This one’s OK but the one John and I built was way cooler, you totally should have seen it.” The result of this was never fun, always frustration on both our parts. He was never satisfied with the new tree house and I was always annoyed by the stories that were just distracting from the great tree house we were in the midst of building.
The kind of kids I liked to play with were the ones who had great stories of other friends and past experiences, but were open to creating new stories with me. These friends would perhaps tell me a story or two but their focus would be on creating new, super awesome and fun experiences with me. How would we create new super awesome and fun experiences? We would put ourselves in the right environment. Maybe it was my parent’s basement, which had a huge closet with a never-ending supply of toys and props of every make and manner, or maybe we’d walk to the nearby woods, where our collective imagination would soar to the height of the tallest tree.
How does this analogy of a childhood memory translate into London’s economic situation? Obviously, we need to create new super awesome and fun experiences in this city. How do we do that? Obviously, we need to create the right environments. What this means is that rather than trying to attract friends by telling stories, with the newest and best toys or other such financial incentives, we need to think about what we can do to make the environment in London conducive to more super awesome and fun experiences. This does not mean making the environment friendlier to investment, it means making the environment more fun, which in turn, will attract investment.
There will always be a friend around the corner with better stories and more toys. What is harder to compete with is the unique creative spirit that flows through each and every one of us. This creative spirit is mysterious in essence, however, researchers have gleaned some insights regarding its practicality. There appear to be environmental conditions that allow for this creative spirit to flourish and others that squander its potential.
From my limited research on the subject, I have found that creativity loves interaction, especially when it’s unplanned and spontaneous. Creativity loves difference, it loves when different types of minds mix and mingle in opportunistic environments. Creativity loves hope and pride. Creativity loves to have a strong identity that is grounded in history while ever-reaching for the heights of a boundless potential future. Finally, creativity loves creativity, and is not opposed to constraint; in fact it is a necessity, but only when it allows for unrestrained potential to be sought.
What does this mean in practice? It means we need to have more and better public and private spaces that allow for spontaneous interaction among diverse minds filled with hope, a strong sense of individual and collective identity, with an open and supportive attitude toward creativity in all its forms. This is what I understand to be the new paradigm in local economic development. Some attribute it to Richard Florida and his “Creative City.” Others are less inclined to give such credit. The basic idea is to make your city a great place to live and the great economy will follow. We can debate the merits of this new paradigm till the cows come home, but what is certain is that London contains a superabundance of the most important resource in the new economy: creativity. All we need to do is let it do its thang.
Comments
great article. great analogy.
This is right on the money. Being new to London I always feel that it has no magic. For the most part it's nice enough but what would keep anyone here ( or me ) as far as that goes? Things like the Car Free Fest are something they should try to make permanent. The walking around and looking at things makes it all more interesting.
Well done.
Thanks Rick, I agree, we need to be more interesting and the only way to do that is start doing more interesting things and that's up to us to make happen, I believe.
I don't argue that people should be involved but it would be nice to have some part of government backing things up.There seems to be a lack of vision in this city. Things like you and your furniture outside was great. In that area there is nothing that makes it comforting. Nice benches, some artwork etc would change the mood and the 'flavour' of the downtown core. Overall it's not impressive.
I would respectfully disagree with the notion that London lacks creativity and vision.
We have a great music scene, including some fantastic music festivals. There is an and active art museum and we have great theater and arts festivals in the city. Besides this there are a few very active farmers markets in town featuring products from local artisans and food producers. We are home to one of the top Universities in Canada and one of the fastest growing and vibrant colleges in the province.
It is a shame that we have such a high unemployment rate. It has affected me and people that I am close to, but we can't say it is because we lack creativity or things to do in the city. The unemployment rate is because our economy depended on the auto industry and that has been hit the hardest by the recession. We need our leaders to focus on bringing more factories and jobs to town and that is what I believe they are trying to do.
Great piece Ryan! You are spot on - it's the random interactions of Cities that generates economic activity. Pedestrians bumping into each other in a non-selected manner. Here, people choose nearly exactly who and where they're going to interact with. While there is the creativity that Michael cites above, it's in spite of London - not because of anything done to bolster creativity. Hence why nearly everyone i know would suggest that it's who you know, not what you know that matters most in London. Most often we drive alone in our own vehicle (not me as much.)
Luring factories is a flawed approach that most Economic Developers have moved away from - realizing the most successful Cities foster bottom-up, grassroots economic development.
The other major, major point that must be made about London is about the economically harmful and financially unsustainable pattern of development that blocks local economic development by Zoning-out creativity. We saw this in a form, with the Chicken debate. Holding onto zoning or preserving it like it's wrote or biblical or scientific is like believing in bloodletting. Try opening a business in this City. Your first stumbling blocks will be location and zoning. The rules favour big-boxes and prevent non-chain stores.
Anyway - sorry for going on - your blog just echoes a lot of the things I've been saying and it's nice to meet a friendly voice. We should coffee sometime.
Happy to know my words resonated with you Justin. I agree with you about the roadblocks to starting new and dynamic small businesses, however, I think the some of it is perception more than reality.
Michael, in no way did I intended to suggest that London "lacks creativity" I believe the last line in the article said that London contains a "superabundance" of creativity. I am well aware of all the great creative things going on in this city. However, I think the main thing London is missing is VISION! What is London's vision? Open for Business? How is that unique to London? One of the ideas I tried to convey in the piece was that London's leaders are relying too heavily on past successes and not effectively looking around the world to see what's going on in cities with dynamic local economies with lower unemployment rates. The strategy you suggest we need our leaders to focus on - "bringing more factories and jobs to town" is what they've been doing forever and the state of the unemployment rate suggests this needs to be reconsidered. No?
Great discussion generated here, Ryan! I (Kadie Ward, Director of Marketing and Communications for the LEDC) want to clarify the objective of our video. We are ecstatic that so many Londoners feel pride when they see this - they should! We live in an exceptional city with innovative businesses and individuals impacting the global economy every day.
Londoners though, were not the primary audience for this video. We wanted to share the story of our industrial and creative innovations with Site Selectors, Canadian Embassy's, Consulate Offices, MPs, MPPs and government officials who make decisions on where investment goes in our country. Not just investment in factories, but investment in digital infrastructure, green initiatives, and creative city projects - all areas we are pursing. Bragging about our friends/companies is one way to demonstrate the innovations happening in London. It's an easy conversation starter, but we certainly intend to engage in new and meaningful discussions/projects.
We have garnered much attention over the past month and over the next few weeks will be hosting delegations from the Ministry of Research and Innovation, The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (just to name a few) to share our strategy for economic prosperity and encourage investment in our digital economy and other priorities.
That makes a lot of sense Kadie, as I noted in the post I know that you and everyone involved with the LEDC are working hard and wisely to stimulate London's economy. I also know that an Economic Development Corporation is limited to a specific set of tools mostly focusing on getting the attention of Site Selectors, Canadian Embassy's, Consulate Offices, MPs, MPPs and government officials. I think in that regard, the video is clearly spot on. I acknowledge that these types of strategies are important and necessary. I also think that there are other approaches to local economic development that could be explored more in London. Not sure if that is by the LEDC, Planning and Development, Community Services, BIA's, the private sector or all of the above.
I know you know that improving quality of life is an essential part of stimulating the local economy and this is clearly not done by any one group, it has to be an integrated approach, involving all the stakeholders including the private sector. I also think that these types of open discussions are super awesome and fun.
Indeed, the local economic development paradigm is changing. London has several distinct organizations and departments that work to facilitate a particular part of the process. The new council would like to bring us all together under one roof (The Business Enterprise Center) to enable synergy and improve our effectiveness. This may be a good first step toward integration.
We have proof that quality of life impacts local economic development. It's a key category in the investment attraction process. Companies want to be sure that the city provides the lifestyle their employees are looking for. A key deciding factor for a recent attraction from Germany was quality of life - they knew the city could attract and retain top engineers and product developers from around the world.
We also appreciate the opportunity to talk about local economic development, so thanks for writing about it and sparking discussion with the FUSE community!