World Cities Culture Report

A new edition of the world cities culture report has been published by the Greater London Authority. The report , now in its 4th edition, offers a pioneering benchmarking of cultural assets and resources in world cities based on a systematic methodology devised by Professor Andy Pratt. The report has been developed and further elaborated by Burns Owens Partnership, with Andy’s help; and with the significant input from CCI PhD student Ulrike Chouguley (who used to work with BOP). Ulrike’s PhD concerns a further development of the methodology the concerns the challenge of capturing informal cultural activities, as well as formal ones.

The World Cities Culture Report has been supported by the GLA, but has developed in a unique collaborative model. Whilst the framework is set, cities collate their own data, and offer their own interpretations of the local and regional import; as well as the authors providing an integrative perspective. The number of cities has grown in this successful project to 23 world cities. This is a landmark achievement. The methodology was carefully designed to be a learning and collaborative knowledge exchange process. So, in contrast to many other such reports it does not seek to rank cities as the ‘best’; it seeks to recognise the strength and depth of cultural diversity and the ways that it is managed and governed.

A second strand to the project is that each year there is a world cities culture summit where the member cities meet and discuss what lessons they can learn from one another to develop  more resilient, representative and sustainable cities of culture. The report is available for free download, there is also a web site that contains details of previous reports and the on-going project.

This year the summit took place in London, and a reception was held on the viewing platform of the Shard. Andy and Ulrike were present, the picture shows Ulrike with colleagues from Paris Carine Camors and Odile Soulard.