18. Creativity and Sustainability

The last couple of days I have spent at the Thriving Neighbourhoods Conference in Melbourne.This event brought together a diverse range of people from around Australia, as well as from New Zealand, Canada, USA (virtually via video link), South Africa, Japan and Europe. The topic under discussion was how do we move towards thriving, resilient, sustainable communities. Based on the idea that it is communities or neighbourhoods that make up our cities, and cities that make up our countries. Among many interesting presentations, we were able to hear from and speak to Richard Florida, author of several major books on creativity, via video link from the USA. This was a great example of how well virtual meetings can work! Richard spoke for 30 minutes about his work and how his ideas link directly to the conference theme of thriving neighbourhoods. He then answered questions from the audience for about 30 minutes. By the end, I think I can say everyone in the room was inspired by this interaction and excited about the prospects of how such virtual communication could be greatly expanded at conferences (especially in Australia, which is quite a long way from just about everywhere). The content of the talk and discussion with Richard raised some big questions about how we can better integrate creativity with sustainability. It's not a given that more creativity equals more sustainability. I think this is a key area of research and action.