鳥創意的窩

Creativity drives the cultivation of a region, increases the competitiveness of talent and of a place, and stimulates the economic growth. Stilwell (1992, p. 7) claims that place, space and the form of a city shape people's lives and opportunities. Landry (2001, p. 234) also states a city should own a culture of creativity that includes high ambition, entrepreneurship and opportunity. The development of a creative city requires the engagement of the public sector, private sector and individuals. However, the creative industries strategy may lead to different outcomes among different countries. Hong Kong and Singapore are located in Southeast Asia and developed in a similar way within the Asian context. They are comparable cases for discussion of the creative industries in Asia.

Both Hong Kong and Singapore are cities comprised of well-educated talent, multicultural backgrounds, and a multi-lingual environment. Moreover, both aim to be global cities in developing the creative industries (HKU and HAB, 2004; CIWG, 2002). Hong Kong is a strong economic power. In the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal's "Index of Economic Freedom", Hong Kong won the honour of being the world's freest economy for the tenth consecutive year in 2004. It also had the second highest GDP per head in Asia (HKU and HAB, 2004). Similarly, Singapore is a prosperous nation contributed by its investment-led economic strategy (CIWG, 2002). In the 2004 World-wide Overall Quality of Life Survey - city ranking report, Singapore was ranked at 60 while Hong Kong ranked lower at 91 (Mercer Human Resource Consulting, 2004). However, its good location makes Hong Kong is a strong competitor in the regional competition against Singapore. Singapore particular expects its cultural indicator to be comparable to Hong Kong in five to ten years (MITA, 2000). This paper aims to compare Hong Kong and Singapore's policies that are relevant to developing a creative city and attempts to offer further analyses.

The Contexts of Hong Kong and Singapore

Since the idea of 'creative industries' has become a prevalent term and travelled world-wide, the Hong Kong government noticed the economic contribution of creative industries to the city. In order to create a comprehensive study on the subject, the Central Policy Unit (CPU) of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) commissioned the Centre for Cultural Policy Research at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) to conduct a 'Baseline Study on Hong Kong's Creative Industries' project by 2002. The study considered Hong Kong's cultural, social, technological and economic features, and proposed an appropriate framework of the creative industries' scope and definition for Hong Kong itself (HKU, 2003). Afterward, a study of the Hong Kong Creativity Index (HKCI) was commissioned by the Home Affairs Bureau of the SAR government. The HKCI refers to Richard Florida's theories in his book 'The rise of the creative class' to analyse HK's competitiveness and measure its creativity (HKU and HAB, 2004). Although there was no specific creative city policy in Hong Kong at the time, the strategy of connecting the creative industries and urban regeneration was emphasized in the study 'Baseline Study on Hone Kong's Creative Industries'. In November 2004, a symposium on 'How to become a Creative City' was held by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC). A number of examples were demonstrated at the symposium and inspired the HKSAR government to figure out a way to develop the creative industries (HKADC, 2005). In addition, it is believed that the suggestion of exploiting creativity to boost the regional economy in the HKCI report could contribute to Hong Kong becoming a creative city.

Singapore adopted the concept of creative industries earlier than Hong Kong. Its 'Renaissance city report' was produced by the Ministry of Information and The Arts (MITA) and announced in 2000. It could be deemed a cultural policy rather than a creative city policy because it rarely mentioned the topic of 'urban development'. This report aimed to establish Singapore as a global arts city and increase Singaporean's national identity and sense of belonging through developing cultural economy (MITA, 2000). According to Lee (2004, p. 285), the recent emphasis on the development of cultural policy or infrastructure was an attempt to change the image of Singapore being a cultural desert. Two years later, in 2002, the first localised creative industries development strategy was translated for Singapore by The Creative Industries Working Group (CIWG) of the Economic Review Committee (ERC) (CIWG, 2002; Lee, 2004, p. 289). The CIWG recommended that the development of creative industries in Singapore should cover three aspects: the arts and cultural sector, the design industry, and the media industry in order to propel of Singapore's Creative Economy (CIWG, 2002; Lee, 2004, p. 289). The idea of Singapore being a renaissance city was emphasized again. With concrete strategies, such as investing in education, developing hard infrastructures for people, encouraging arts and cultural entrepreneurship, Singapore showed its ambition of being "a highly innovative and multi-talented global city for arts and culture" (CIWG, 2002). The suggestion of establishing a Renaissance Singapore, Design Singapore and Media 21 is anticipated to form a creative cluster and double the GDP contribution of creative industries (CIWG, 2002).

The policies

Two policies have been raised in order to increase creative vitality in Hong Kong, one is HKCI-5Cs, and another is an Urban Regeneration plan within the report 'Baseline Study on Hong Kong's Creative Industries' . The HKCI plan is based-on Florida's theory and adapted for Hong Kong's context. The 5Cs are: manifestations of creativity, structural/institutional capital, human capital, social capital, and cultural capital (HKU and HAB, 2004). Through the 5Cs, Hong Kong would like to design criteria and indicators to assess Hong Kong's creativity. For Hong Kong, the contributions of creative industries are not merely anticipated in economic growth, but also in the other inventive outcomes in place. From the aspect of structural/institutional capital, six societal conditions will be assessed. They consist of the legal system, freedom of speech, international commitment to cultural development, ICT infrastructure, social and cultural infrastructure, and entrepreneurship and financial structure. In terms of human capital, the framework examines whether the community provides an adequate context for people to accumulate knowledge, and examines the extent of mobility of the population and human capital. Nine items will be evaluated in terms of social capital, and those are significant in networking, collaboration, social expression and the engagement in social activities. Cultural capital refers to the qualities and values of cultural activities, and measures the resources that foster the arts and cultural development in a community (HKU and HAB, 2004). Put simply, the HKCI not only emphasized the establishment of hard infrastructures or institution, but also cares about civic behaviours and the interactions between talents.

The HKCI-5Cs attempts to integrate the theory of Richard Florida and Hong Kong's context and provides a convincible indicator, but the Urban Regeneration strategy mentioned in the report 'Baseline study on Hong Kong's Creative Industries' (HKU, 2003) offers a concrete plan for cultivating a vibrant city. Three ideas are incorporated in the Urban Regeneration: clustering of industries for themed development, heritage/tourism related development, and flagship project. The three ideas tend to be hard infrastructure development in terms of heritage preservation, tourism business, flagship-scale infrastructures establishment, and the aggregation of existing business activities. The HKCI-5Cs and the Urban Regeneration plans demonstrate the striving toward building soft and hard infrastructure for the HKSAR, and is expected to contribute to economic and non-economic return to the city (HKU and HAB, 2004).

While Hong Kong pays more attention to identify the scope of developing creative industries and to build the index which suits to Hong Kong society, Singapore's priority is to fuse arts, technology and business in developing a Creative Economy (CIWG, 2002). They use the term 'Creative Cluster' and use the same definition of 'creative industries' defined by the UK Creative Industries Taskforce in 1998. The Creative Cluster in Singapore is comprised of three broad groups: Arts and Culture, Design, and Media. In the report 'Creative Industries Development Strategy' (CIWG, 2002), the Singapore government believes that a successful Creative Cluster would depend on how well they deploy and develop their cultural assets. Thus, three key initiatives are decided for establishing a vibrant creative cluster: Renaissance City 2.0, Design Singapore, and Media 21. From the interim report, the three initiatives can be deemed to be policies of establishing hard infrastructures for creative industries. In terms of building a Renaissance City, The National Arts Council (NAC), National Heritage Board (NHB), National Library Board (NLB) and Singapore Tourism Board (STB) play significant roles in the development of the arts and cultural sector. The collaboration between these governmental organizations attempts to form interplay between 'Arts for Arts' sake', that the NAC, NHB and NLB represent, and 'Arts for Business' Sake', that the STB represents. However, when the creative or public spaces, the arts and cultural centers, and the entrepreneurship are emphasized constantly, the cultural issues such as heritage preservation, the promotion of Singaporean traditions, and the story-telling about the local history and culture are rarely mentioned.

In order to foster a 'Design Singapore', it is expected the three players in the design ecosystem, enterprises, expertise and education, will converge. The Design will not only be integrated in the enterprises, but will be developed as a design community through embedding education and enhancing the professions (CIWG, 2002). The initiative of 'Design Singapore' aims to position Singapore as a global design hub and develop their multimedia design capabilities (Lee, 2004, p. 294; CIWG, 2002). The media industry is in a crucial position for developing creative industries in Singapore. Singapore intends to build a Global Media City through implementing Media 21 strategy. The strategies to achieve the goal are establishing Singapore as a media exchange, exporting made-in-Singapore content, deploying digital media, internationalising Singapore media enterprises, augmenting media talent, and fostering a business and regulatory environment (CIWG, 2002). According to Lee (2004, p. 293), the Media 21 strategy is expected to incorporate Singapore media in a broader sector comprised of the arts, technologies, and media exchange, and then maximize the economic contribution. The three sectors, arts and culture, design, and media, underpin the Singaporean characteristic of being a creative city. Furthermore, it is highly anticipated that the three sectors will contribute to the city's economic growth.

Analysis of the policies and the theories

Both Hong Kong and Singapore adopted the term 'Creative Industries' from the UK, and the policies of both are somewhat affected by Florida's theory of creative class. However, Hong Kong and Singapore have different approaches in developing the creative industries and flourishing their cities. For Hong Kong, even though the economic development is a purpose of adopting the idea of creative industries, the policy did not merely focus on the economic growth but also considered people, aesthetic, social networking, and market issues. The city has been praised for its freedom of expression and artistic creations, and this environment encourages cultural diversity (People's Daily Online, 2002). Singapore, on the other hand, tends to be economy-driven and focuses on the establishment of concrete infrastructures. Using Landry's definition (2001, pp. 234-235), it seems that the creative industries strategy in Singapore tends to be more 'cultural development' rather than 'culture and development' as are Hong Kong's strategies. There is less connection between the policies and the belief, traditions and the life styles of Singaporean while Hong Kong emphasizes human capital and social capital. From the aspect of 'technology index' (Florida, 2003, p. 251), Singapore adopted new technology to increase design ability, and intended to invest in the digital environment to foster the media and entertainment industry (CIWG, 2002). The infrastructure of information and communication technologies also plays a significant role in measuring Hong Kong's creativity. Both cities are embracing this major source of social and economic change as an instrument to increase their creativities.

In order to build a creative city, it is necessary to develop specific places to attract people and increase identity. People's ability, attitudes, knowledge, imagination and creativity are intangible resources for business development as well as the prosperity of a city (Douglas, 2004; Landry, 2000, p. xiii). A creative cluster where talents congregate would have higher potential to build a vibrant region through intensifying the relationship between creative individuals as would the construction of a network within which competition and collaboration would be stimulated (Landry, 2000, p. 113; Leadbeater, 1999, p. 141). A creative milieu is critical to shape a creative city because it is a public good and allows people to share space to exchange and inspire new ideas; it also transmits distinctive skills and knowledge that is difficult for others to imitate (Leadbeater and Oakley, 1999, pp. 32-35; Landry, 2000, p. 133). In addition to the hard infrastructure, the soft infrastructure, the social networks, the communications, and the encouragement of new and innovative ideas, also play a crucial role in cultivating a creative city (Landry, 2000, p. 133). Furthermore, as Florida (2003, p. 293) argues, an effective "people climate" is more important than a solid business climate. According to Landry, Leadbeater and Oakley's definition of creative milieu, from the aspect of hard infrastructure, Singapore has formed a creative milieu, The Esplanade, within which people share the space to learn, cooperate, compete and compare; to evoke a sense of belonging (Lee, 2004, p. 284). Yet there were a plenty of critics thinking it would be over-designed and underused (Tan, 2002). Moreover, the government's investment in arts and cultural facilities are deemed as 'government's way to say it cares about art' by citizens (People's Daily Online, 2002). Indeed, compared with Hong Kong's strategy, the Singaporean creative industries policy lacks an emotional connection to the city although it shows a number of strategies for developing arts and culture. However, Hong Kong faces a similar problem regarding its flagship cultural center in the West Kowloon district, where Hong Kong intents to develop as a creative milieu (Lo, 2005). People are not only questioning financial investment in the development, but also doubting the contribution of the milieu to the growth in arts and culture. Landry (2000, p. 119) states that it is important to create a new image and story of a city, but the historical background is equally essential in a city's identity. The cultural identity could cluster people's ability together and invigorate an area with a historical and aesthetic atmosphere. While the hard infrastructure provides a place aggregating talents together, both Hong Kong and Singapore should look at how to increase the cultural identity and make the creative milieu attractive.

Conclusion

Although they have similar backgrounds and conditions, Hong Kong and Singapore have adapted creative industries strategies with different approaches. Hong Kong tends to review its context and study the creative industries before developing its own indicator while Singapore devised the policy from its economic demand. This resulted in Singapore releasing its 'Renaissance Singapore' strategy in 2000 which was four years earlier than Hong Kong's symposium about 'How to become a creative city?' in 2004. Both cities are expecting the creative industries will enable them to be global economic centres. They also equally incorporated education, technology infrastructures, and creative clusters in their policies. However, Singapore focused on the hard infrastructures more than soft infrastructures while Hong Kong's 5Cs include social, human, cultural and institutional capitals. The two cities are also developing a impressive milieu to form a network for their people, yet arts appreciation and cultural identity should be increased. For Hong Kong and Singapore, the policies are just a start. The establishment of hard and soft infrastructures and the increase of people's identity with the local community take time to be fostered. It is essential to figure out the local characteristics of both cities, and attract more creative talent to visit. It is believed that the competition between the two cities will be very intense, but it is also anticipated that both Hong Kong and Singapore can achieve their goals of being examples of creative cities in Asia.

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