The five professors surprisingly agreed on one thing, even though each of them needed lots of words to tell just this: talented people migrate to cities in order to find work in the first place. It is the production system of a city that is vital to young people. All the rest can be cool, agreeable and very pleasant, but is of lesser importance. Politicians should better facilitate local networks of entrepreneurs in their cities and help young professionals to start their own business rather than try to build a creative hotspot.

This is what they added to their identical advice. Attracting multinationals costs lots of money and seems far less effective than building local networks of entrepreneurs. Most of the city’s economy is local, they added, people hate to move anyway, especially over long distances, so it was agreed to better facilitate small businesses that are already there. They used a word for this: strengthen the retention power of the city. Great evening, excellent advice. 

Zef Hemel

Is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning (Wibaut Chair) at the University of Amsterdam, member of the Advisory Board at the Centre for Urban Studies and deputy director at the Spatial Planning Department of the City of Amsterdam.